The Untitled Claudia Donovan Project
by ragnaroktopus
Summary: Philosophical quandaries, parallel universes, and Pete Lattimer as a chimpanzee. Claudia Donovan, uninspired college student, reluctantly finds herself in a world (or more) of endless wonder. Warehouse 13.
1. Claudia

She modeled her bedroom after that of a crazy person. Which, by some accounts, might make her crazy. Which she fully acknowledged, though typically a sense of self-consciousness and recognition of one's own abnormalities is a fair sign that a person is not crazy. Quirky, maybe, but quirky is a word that people throw around loosely, if they so much as thought about deviating from the not-even-mandates of proper society. "Oh sometimes I eat cereal for dinner, I'm just quirky like that!"

Claudia ate cereal out of shoes.

Across one wall of her bedroom she had hung a full map of the United States, the kind that cinematic FBI agents might trace the paths of a serial killer across with string and pictures push-pinned to particular places, or a map that same serial killer might use to plot his killing spree. In a university dorm room, it was simply eerie. And, ultimately, it produced the desired effect on her guests. On it she stretched pieces of yarn, connecting cities, the significances of which only she knew – if there were any significances at all. Visitors would peer closely at each, backs bent, lines appearing on their brows, and the bolder ones might take it upon themselves to pluck at a string, or to point, or somehow call attention to the giant map in the room. To these actions, Claudia would produce an expression of violent reproach.

The ruse was exhausting. In Claudia's first attempt at shoe-filled breakfast, she had mistakenly filled a pair of used athletic shoes, specially designed for breathability, and as she raised the Achilles notch to her lips, the soymilk seeped through the outer layer of fabric and trailed down her hands. A new approach was necessary. It was scientific, almost, how she went about testing new props, because they were entirely props, in that she was not actually crazy, and did not actually have a shoes-as-dishes fetish. Her finding of a functional shoe bowl required a multivariate analysis involving factors of volume, liquid resistance, ease of handling, and identification of any odd flavors that might transfer from shoe to food. And it yielded proper results. There was no better deterrent to friendship than having a polite request for a snack returned with a men's dress shoe filled with crackers.

A university is indeed a place for personal reinvention, though most are restrained to a new nickname or a more daring clothing style. Claudia had considered adding erratic manners of dress to her character, though quietly contained madness underneath an exterior of normalcy proved far more off-putting to others. One might compare her to a jack-o-lantern, which appears pleasing and seasonally appropriate on the outside, yet upon greater reflection it is nothing more nor less than a dripping, eviscerated life form in need of a fire inside it.

Her major, because that is the universal university icebreaker, was exploratory, in that she had not a singular idea of what she wished to pursue. In her first year, people had found her choice surprising yet intriguing, a carefully measured amount of encouragement with a careful forewarning. By this time, the eve of her final year, people simply allowed her to carry out her career suicide, in that the only distinction on her diploma would read, "Bachelor of Undecided Attention."

She was fine with it. She accepted it.


	2. Monkeys and Typewriters

_The way a typewriter works makes me think of a piece of paper like the skin of an animal. Little pointed shapes punch it and the paper bleeds black blood, and the cuts tell you something. I can't figure them out though – the other people stare at the papers and I guess they look at the order of the marks, and it means more than just black blood on papers. I know it's not paper blood though; when they first gave me my typewriter, I felt around on the insides and the blood got all over my fingers, so I thought it was machine blood, that this thing wasn't supposed to be open in the top and someone cut it open. But it tasted worse than blood, it stuck for days and everything I touched got black and smeared. I started to smear it on my face until someone took my hands and shook them, and said, "Don't! No mess!" and I stopped._

_Mostly we're left alone, to type, unless we start a fight or someone throws things. I remember fighting a lot because I didn't want to type, there were huge emergencies that started with one person going to someone else's desk and grabbing fistfuls of paper, throwing them, and the other person would stand on their desk and kick the typewriter onto the floor and then people from around them would jump in and start biting each other, until everyone in the room was screaming. We wouldn't have to type for the rest of the day, but we had to sit in our quiet rooms afterward._

_There are only ten of us, because we were difficult. But we've matured, so now on most days only one of them sits outside our room, behind the glass. When visitors come, a supervisor will walk between our desks and make sure we're typing, while people watch. I realized that they like it better when we type with both our hands, using different fingers for different marks, because they'll all point at whichever one of us is doing that, and take pictures. It takes a lot more practice, since our fingers bend a lot more, and most of us don't try and just use one finger only. But I type as best I can, and I'm better than everyone else at it. I get more rewards._

_Type, eat, play some, sleep._


	3. Leena

"Claudia, Claudia, Claudia!"

The voice sing-songed through the closed door, and had the light from inside not been seeping out underneath, and were there reasonable enough doubt as to Claudia's presence in the room, she would have ignored it altogether. The only person who would call her name with that much confidence would be the RA – someone whose job description necessitated contact with her.

Claudia dragged her feet across the room, and rather suddenly flung open the door, pinning it to the wall so it stayed propped open. The girl on the other side, however, did not startle. In their albeit brief interactions, the RA was a person Claudia had not yet managed to send running the opposite direction. The RA had a manner of dress that implied effortlessness on her part – natural, vibrant, and cohesive, yet despite all her visual distinction (a distinction that overlapped her character) it did not force itself on one's eyes, nor did it convey any kind of vanity. Her appearance and her demeanor instead gave her a way of greeting a person on their level, quietly conversing with them, and fluently connecting with them. She met Claudia's gaze and she beamed with calm reassurance.

"May I come in?"

Claudia half-smiled, her mouth unexercised at this, and motioned toward the edge of her bed. The RA sat, and absorbed the décor.

"I realize that you would rather keep to yourself, and that's fine," she began, "I respect your space, and I expect others on this floor to do the same. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with people compromising your privacy, or making you uncomfortable in any way."

Something caught in Claudia's throat. This was not typical RA-speak. Though, the "Get involved! Meet new people!" speech might yet be forthcoming.

"That said,"

_Ah, here it is. Nothing less from the bubbly do-gooder. _A smirk slipped across Claudia's lips.

The RA paused. Or rather, she _waited_. Claudia cocked her head to one side, as the RA almost simultaneously made the same motion. They stared, both girls frozen, directly into each other's eyes, and a brief vision of some fanatic curiosity flashed across the RA's features. It immediately vanished, heads resumed natural vertical orientation, and she continued. Claudia shivered visibly.

"That said, I want to encourage everyone to leave their doors open at the beginning of this year."

"Ah." Claudia's gaze turned to some small imperfection on her fingertips, and she picked idly at the skin.

"It's not an issue of forcing you to make friends, I really wouldn't require that of anyone. It's a safety issue, in that we need folks to know who lives on this floor, whom they should expect to see around here, especially at night."

_Folks. Quaint._

"At the very least, you should have a memory for faces. Names are less important, but if you see someone around who's unfamiliar, lock your door, and let me know asap. I'm in 401. Don't be a stranger."


	4. Zen Boy

He entered the room without a knock.

In fact, he entered without so much as any vocal indication that he would be stepping into the place of residence of a person he did not know. Had Claudia not been present, he could have been pegged as a thief.

Claudia was seated at her desk, a single hand upon her laptop touchpad, lazily sliding one finger around to peruse various pages of irrelevant information. She found herself alone in the habit of researching topics she had no use for, nor scholarly obligation for. Eventually, this knowledge would accumulate itself around her and erect a wall, and the smaller factoids would trickle out from the gaps and fill in a space as the moat beyond this border. Information, the greatest defense.

The springs of the bed let out a quiet squeak, and Claudia's head whipped around, hair flicking her face.

A man, or a boy – a male person of approximate age as her, at that transitional college age where one doesn't quite feel a man or woman, but resents being called a girl or boy – sat quite comfortably on Claudia's bed, leaning back against the wall, eyes half-closed and glazed over.

"Do you need something?" Claudia swiveled in her chair, and tensed to move, in whatever way necessary.

"I needed a place to sit," the boy replied, letting the last word hang. Claudia waited for further explanation, but the man's eyelids slowly drooped further, until they shut, and no extra words came.

As per dorm-living formalities, people had introduced themselves to each other upon moving in, and though Claudia devoted no memory space to the linking of names to faces, she could certainly recognize the faces of those who lived on her floor. This was not one such face.

"Do you live here? Do you want me to call someone for you?" in all likelihood, the boy was either stoned, drunk, or dangerously fatigued, and had come upon this dorm in a confused state.

"Are you okay?"

The boy's eyes opened, and they locked onto Claudia. His mouth tightened, as if holding in words he was reluctant to part with. He decided to let go.

"A red balloon."

A few seconds passed. Claudia stared, as the words refused to click, her brain flashed red, and her stomach slowly deflated into rubbery anxiety. None of the above. He was unhinged. In her chair, Claudia planted her feet on the ground, though did not rise, so as not to be perceived as a threat. Madness was familiar, she knew how it functioned. And how quickly did a genuine madness draw out the sanity in her.

"Is there something that you need – yes or no?"

The boy let out a long sigh, not one of exasperation, but one clinging to calm. This worried Claudia all the more. He slowly rose from the bed, stretching as he did, and approached the wall with the yarn strings and pins.

Claudia's fingers whitened around the arms of her chair, and yet the boy appeared entirely oblivious to her as he leaned forward and plucked the taut yarn with a pinky.

"Embrace the senseless world," he muttered.

Recognition sprang upon the seated girl. Stomach ballooned. Dam burst and moat filled, she flew across the room to push the boy away from strings.

"Get out. Now." her hand made contact with his shoulder – more forcefully than she had intended - and he stumbled back. The collected expression that had been on his face prior seemed to be shaken away, and he now appeared pained, and withdrawn.

"No – don't. I have absolutely no time for this. Take your philosophy elsewhere. Leave." She reached out to administer another push, which the boy sidestepped and found his back against a wall.

"I thought-I heard you'd be fine with us." He said. "A recluse shunning the conventions of modern society, a thinker after our own movement."

"I don't – who?" Claudia seethed. "_Who_ said that? I have a _conscience_, I respect people's space, I'm not crazy-"

"They said you ate out of shoes."

"_Frak _shoes_._ I'm not in your movement, I don't believe anything you believe, what I do is my own business."

The boy stood against the wall, eyes unfocused and aimed somewhere at the carpet. His hands came together and he began pressing on his knuckles, wringing his hands and pulling at the skin.

"Damn it." He ducked his head and turned out the door, breaking into a run before Claudia could register his reaction.

She wrenched the door from the magnetic fixture on the wall, and let it swing shut. She secured the deadbolt.


	5. End Ruse

A knock at the door. Claudia was perched on her desk chair, plucking pins from the map-and-yarn display on the wall, and letting them clink into an empty mug. A shorter string of yarn fell, one end leading, in a wide, spiraling motion to the floor. It whirled tornado-like until it touched down onto the carpet, where it spun for a second more, before falling limp. That was one thing she appreciated – the way things fell.

She cursed quietly. Her lights were on. She slunk down onto the floor and over to the door, where she rested a hand tentatively on the knob.

"Claudia, open up."

Some odd combination of relief and exasperation washed over her at the sound of the RA's voice, and she acquiesced.

The girl strode in past Claudia and resumed her prior spot on the edge of the bed. The calming, quiet nature had been replaced with a kind of urgency, and it was unnerving to see her in that state.

"I've received a complaint from one of the groups on campus. I was told that a member of a philosophical organization encountered prejudice and physical threat in this dorm."

The color drained from Claudia's face.

"No names were shared, because none were known, but I know enough about my dorm members to identify the party involved."

"He was-"

"Don't." The RA closed her eyes. "This wouldn't be an issue, had you handled yourself in a rational manner."

"There was literally nothing else I could do to make him leave. He was _irrational_." Claudia's voice cracked.

"Yes, and that's kind of their thing." The RA quipped. Claudia drew back, and the other girl mirrored this withdrawal, suddenly upset by her own break in self-resolve.

"I'm sorry. It's a very complicated situation, and there's a measure of understanding that you need to exhibit when confronting people of alternative philosophies."

Claudia stared vacantly past the girl. She continued,

"If you find yourself in any similar situations and are unsure of how to act, please consult me, and I can address the visitor."

Claudia's jaw tightened and she locked eyes with the RA. "I won't find myself in any similar situations, because I'm not keeping my door open anymore."

Braced for rebuttal, Claudia had determined that complete geographical autonomy was the critical factor in her maintaining any measure of privacy. Deterring others through performance had sprung a leak, and she had opted to abandon the ship as soon as possible. Short of staying in her bedroom entirely, there must be another way by which to maintain her independence. She could try convincing others that she had suddenly become mute.

Inexplicably, the tension in the room broke, and the RA exhaled sharply in what could've only been a muffled laugh. "That's a good idea," she remarked, "Keep your door closed, and I'll receive fewer complaints." She rose and crossed to the doorway, where she turned back to face the still-seated girl.

"By the way…what's my name?"

_Crap._

Among all the other familiar faces to names she couldn't be bothered to memorize, this was possibly the only one that she should have actually made the effort to learn. Claudia inhaled deeply as if to speak, air caught in her throat, and she began coughing. The RA waited patiently, arms folded, until the coughing spell could not have reasonably continued any longer.

"Ssssss…Sarah."

"Leena." She replied, with obvious amusement. "There's no one named Sarah on this floor."

Dress spinning behind her, she departed out of view without further comment. Claudia was rooted by her posterior in her chair, staring blankly at where the RA had just stood. From halfway down the hallway, a voice called back,

"There's no one named Sarah in the whole building."


	6. Bed and Breakfast

Claudia awoke to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm.

Which wasn't an inherently absurd scenario, as she may have accidentally picked a different tune to play from her phone at 7:30am. Her fingers may have slipped on the touch screen menu, but the crux of the matter was that she had thankfully chosen an alarm that loud enough to wake her up.

The fact that it came from an unfamiliar clock, on an unfamiliar nightstand, was in indeed bizarre.

Being a person of minimal social activity, and considering that she spent her Friday night eating crackers alone in her room, it was entirely inconceivable that she had blacked out while drunk, and found herself in a stranger's bed. Though, she mentally filed away that excuse for later access, should no other tenable explanation arise.

Within the minute of waking, her heart was already pounding. Her stomach felt something like a small container of jell-o, and she stayed immobilized under the covers, breathing in the alien-ness of her surroundings.

The smell was entirely new. A crisp, clean smell, contributed to by the no doubt recently laundered sheets – which comforted her, in that she was somewhere well cared for, with an air of professionalism. Something better than a hostel, a small inn maybe, that adhered to higher standards than most.

She was familiar with the concept of fugue states, and being lucid at this time, she determined that it was best to come to terms with this as a possibility and address the causes later. It could be days later than her last memory. Her mind could have shut off for weeks, or-

The date on the digital clock read "11.13"

Less than 8 hours, then.

She pulled back the covers and suppressed her surprise at the t-shirt and sweatpants pajama combo she was wearing, both of which she did not own – though both fit her alarmingly well.

"What the _hell_." Even as a whisper, her voice cracked, and panic rose up in her throat.

Nothing in the room was hers. A strange but appealing green shoulder bag hung from the back of a desk chair, dotted with an array of pins and buttons. As her head whipped around in search of anything recognizable, part of her hair fell across her eyes, and she focused on it - cross-eyed, and bewildered.

The door opened and Claudia startled, scrambling off the bed and onto her feet.

"_Leena!_"

Her RA stood in the doorway, with the same expression of patient frustration she'd given Claudia many times prior, yet under far different circumstances. Claudia held her breath for the explanation to follow, and yet, Leena regarded Claudia's stunned features with no inkling of consideration.

"Well, good morning to you, too. I'm sorry for barging in like this, but I've been calling for you to come downstairs for breakfast and you didn't reply."

Claudia's stomach pitched into a freefall. She drew back, mind racing, defensive walls thrown up around her mind. This was not the ordinary world.

"Artie's been waiting for about fifteen minutes – he's not upset _yet_, don't worry. He's enjoying the toast and muffins, but you and Steve need to get moving on your next assignment as soon as possible."

"Assignment…?" Claudia nearly whimpered, then swallowed her embarrassment.

Leena drew breath to reply, but stopped, and met Claudia's hesitant gaze. Something was turning behind her features, in what Claudia presumed was that same, characteristic RA scrutiny, and yet Claudia could not, for the life of her, determine if this was the same Leena, or a dream-Leena. And if the latter, what hidden faculty of her mind had suddenly allowed for this intensely vivid dream? She felt the same kind of uncomfortable vulnerability under the girl's gaze, whose brows furrowed into something between confusion and concern.

"I'll be right back," Leena spoke slowly, "Get dressed, and I'll come get you."

Claudia trailed after her at a distance.

Whatever place this was, whatever this Leena could possibly do before she came back to her, she would like to find out before she was caught off-guard.

The house appeared to be a modestly sized, two story place with an old-fashioned flair – nothing overwhelmingly old, just scattered antique décor to lend to what might have been a cozy feel. Claudia felt as if she were walking across a glass floor, as if the structure of the house might simply vanish, and this would blend into another equally vivid dream. But, in most cases, she could always subtly tell a dream from reality, even if her mind did not outright recognize it. The boundaries of dream environments always felt _pliable_, just the smallest bit influenced by the expectations of the dreamer – some horizon might contract or expand according to will. And yet, this place was more solidly bound than her life back home.

Voices drifted up the staircase, and she tiptoed down, acutely aware of how the steps in this place might creak. Leena's voice rose over the others, which briefly fell silent as she continued.

"…not right. Something about her is…slightly off."

"What, her aura's all wonky?" a male voice cut in.

"Pete, I'm being serious."

"Hey, nobody's laughing. I know how serious auras are."

"She-"

A clunking sound caused all heads to turn, as Claudia bumped into a cabinet and swore, massaging the offending hipbone. Several people were seated around a table, with various plates of partially eaten breakfast items in front of them, though Leena had been standing with her back to Claudia, addressing the group. They stared in cautious silence as she slunk toward the kitchen table, her eyes flicking around to each of their faces, struggling to recognize them.

"You okay, Claudia?" one asked.

Round face, a sharp chin, and pale blue eyes locked on inquiringly, underneath wide brows and a buzzed haircut. The other faces she was wholly thrown by, but this one seemed to initiate a mental connect-the-dots in her head.

"I'm…" she began. They waited – and it was their patience, and apparent concern for her that bewildered her more than anything. She returned back to the face of that one man, and a sudden recognition came upon her.

"_You're the Buddhist guy._" Claudia brought a hand up to her hanging jaw.

"Memory-altering artifact. I'm calling it right now," another man said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. Claudia recognized his voice as the one called Pete.

Another older man, stout, with grizzled hair and glasses held up both hands.

"Hold on, we're not calling _anything_. Now," he straightened up in his seat and peered at Claudia over his glasses, "Do you smell fudge?"

"Artie, are you kidding me-"

"_Shhhh!_" the older man glared at the speaker – a woman with long, curly-hair, a sharp outfit, and a completely indignant expression. The man returned his gaze to Claudia. "Do you smell fudge?"

Claudia couldn't slow down her breathing to ponder the scent in the air. If not a dream, then a hallucination and she was mad, and if not mad, then she was damned. She had somehow been lifted from her bed in the middle of the night, and Leena and Zen man were actors beyond her comprehension, engaging in an elaborate deception to some ends. Leena had certainly been critical of Claudia's encounter with the boy, _unreasonably_ so – and Claudia quickly scrambled to tie ends together that weren't even that loose. She was mentally faltering, and she felt a ringing in her ears.

"Claudia?"

The ringing silenced. "I need to go home," she whispered.

The man named Artie leaned forward, as the others exchanged concerned expressions.

"_Where do you live?_"

"Russell Hall, fourth floor. NU." she sputtered.

All heads turned to the Buddhist, who had been watching Claudia intently through piercing eyes. His brows narrowed in confusion, and he spoke in a low tone.

"She's not lying."

The man named Artie removed his glasses and leaned forward, elbows on table, to rest his face in his hands. He rubbed deep circles across his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Leena, I need you to go to the Warehouse and run a full scan on the inventory for any missing artifacts, I'll meet you there in an hour. Pete, Myka – I'm giving the assignment to you, seeing as Claudia is indisposed until further notice. Steve, stay here, and make sure no further damage is done."


	7. Zen Man

The three other people slowly parted to their assigned locations, but each not before giving Claudia an expression of worry tinged with pity. The curly-haired woman, Myka, had placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and seemed to contemplate extending it into a hug. Yet she held back, feeling Claudia recoil under her hand, and instead gave a small nod, and joined Pete at the doorway.

"Good luck," Artie said.

"Same to you." Myka murmured. Something akin to suspicion crawled across her features, though she quickly suppressed it.

"Don't go bonkers on us, Claude." Pete added with a dry smile. Myka scowled, and the two departed.

Artie, with some effort, lifted a black carpet bag up from the floor and dropped it on the kitchen table, to a considerable banging of plates. He fished around in it for a moment, before pulling out a large, security camera-looking device with a handle on the bottom side.

Steve straightened up in his chair with a look of apprehension.

"Can I – can you not go into my room with that?" he asked sheepishly.

Artie fiddled with the gadget, turning a small knob near his hand. "I'm going to do a quick sweep of the entrances and exits, to see if anyone, or anything came into the house early this morning, and then I'll take a look at Claudia's room more thoroughly. "

Steve bristled. "You weren't going to ask for her permission before snooping around her room?"

Artie stopped abruptly and looked up from the device. For the first time, he seemed to really consider the validity of another person's remark, and almost questioningly, he held eye contact with Claudia.

In the past ten minutes, she had gone from accepting the possibility of her own insanity, in confronting what appeared to be a vividly surreal hallucination - and then believing panic-stricken in her own part as the victim of a brainwashing kidnapping heist. And now, her supposed kidnappers had coordinated in a fact-finding mission in order to determine where she, now a stranger, had come from. Her stomach had receded into the shape of a prune. Her entire body had drained and dried out.

"It's not my room," she muttered, "Do whatever you need to do."

With a quick glance at Steve, who gave a confirming nod, Artie clicked on the device and headed out, carpet bag in tow. A shimmering beam of red light extended out from the gadget, before he turned the corner.

Steve and Claudia were left in silence at the kitchen table. Her head had stopped spinning, and the quietude lent her a surreal sense of reassurance.

"So, you know me." Steve ventured.

"Apparently I don't."

Steve folded his hands on the table. "How did you _think_ you knew me?"

Claudia mimicked his posture. "You're an irritating kid from a Buddhist cult. You've got shaggy hair, you wear hemp jackets, and I'm sure that's not the only hemp derivative you have."

Steve let out a short laugh, and shook his head in disbelief. "I don't buy it, but I have to. Nothing you've said up to this point has been a lie."

"Glad you trust me."

"It's not trust, it's…an ability I've always had."

"What, you're a human lie detector?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah." Steve smiled briefly, yet it quickly faded. Claudia sensed some profound discomfort in him, as if this were a conversation he wished he wasn't having. His whole demeanor, and his tone were too much like that of a person consoling a loved one. Having to repeat forgotten facts, and fill in the gaps in the person's memory. To someone who might've just woken up from a coma.

Horror swept over Claudia for a terrifying half-second, until she shoved the thought back into her subconscious. Not the time. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the reins of the conversation and steered it back to reality.

"The Steve I know, he's completely oblivious. He's one of the NuBuddhists, a Zen offshoot I think. It's completely cultish, but the university puts up with it, because of the 'principle of philosophical freedom.' They're obsessed with the idea that the universe is incomprehensible, and because of that, their goal is to act incomprehensible too. They think that to try and act normally – well, rationally - is a lie, like trying to make sense out a senseless world." Claudia paused. Steve's expression was unreadable, the veracity of her statements apparently washing over him. "Er, I'm guessing it's not your kind of sutra."

Something buzzed on the table. Steve's concentration broke, and he felt around, nudging aside plates and scattering muffin crumbs until he found the buzzing device. It was a large, brass tin, something that you might put mints in, though it rattled from inside. Steve held it vertically and the lid opened on a hinge. A voice spoke through the device.

"How's Claudia?"

"Sitting right here, if you want to ask her." Steve said with a quick glance up at the girl. Claudia gave a slight eyeroll, and she picked at the edge of a piece of toast, scratching off crumbs onto the table.

Pete's voice rattled through the device. "Well, Myka's pet theory is that she's been replaced by some sort of Alice-type demon."

Myka's voice cut in. "_I mean_ a trapped consciousness could have escaped from an artifact, and exchanged places with Claudia's consciousness, and the real Claudia could be somewhere, in some _thing_. It would explain the inconsistencies in her memory-"

"Myka, a lot of things could explain that-" Pete's voice rang out.

"_And_," Myka's took over, "I looked up the place she was talking about, the place she said she lived. Russell Hall at NU? No university that uses those initials has a building under that name."

Pete's voice came back insistently. "Well we don't know that, it could be some obscure, artsy sort of college that only young people know about. Claude has a mysterious past."

"That doesn't make any sense, she said she lives at that university _now," _Myka retorted.

The two agents' voices broke through each other's, the argument escalating as Steve closed his eyes in apparent frustration. It seemed, for all purposes, as though he were counting slowly - lips moving along with the numbers, though it ultimately failed in its intent.

"Just shut up, both of you," he snapped. "The Claudia that's here, and I repeat, she is sitting _right here_ - she hasn't told a single lie in the time she's been here. Everything she's saying is true, or at least, she completely, unquestioningly believes it to be true. She's not trying to deceive us."

There was silence on the other end. Claudia began to think that the transmission had ended, yet Steve still had his eyes glued on the radio.

Myka's voice came through quietly, "Steve, we realize that you feel close to Claudia-"

"_That is a non-issue,_" Steve hissed, "You two aren't even listening, you're just babbling on over each other. Pete, what do your vibes say?"

Claudia shifted her chair around the perimeter of the table, scooting along until she could see the inside of the tin. A round screen showed a black and white, real-time video of Pete's and Myka's faces, as they looked in unease through the screen.

Pete seemed to notice Claudia's face peering around the edge of his vision, and he locked eyes with hers. He sighed, and his eyes flicked back to Steve's.

"No bad vibes. This Claudia's a good kid, even if she isn't ours."


	8. A Bed Bubble

"We have a disturbance!"

Artie's voice boomed down from the second floor. Steve and Claudia turned toward the doorway, holding their collective breath. They waited for the sound of heavy footfalls to come pelting down the stairs, for Artie's face to appear, and enlightenment to be bestowed. Nothing followed. Claudia nibbled the ends of her nails, glancing furtively at Steve.

"_Come. Here._" Artie roared.

Steve pushed out his chair and headed for the stairs, and Claudia leapt up to follow him. "Not sure why I expected any different," Steve grumbled.

Claudia couldn't help but let a smirk slither across her mouth. They took the stairs two at a time, steps creaking violently under their feet, until coming upon Artie in the room Claudia had awoken in. There wasn't enough of a doorframe for two leaning bodies, so she perched on the edge of a dresser, panting, and embarrassed by her own apparent stagnancy.

"Good. Now, I want you to watch this."

Artie pointed his torchlight device at the bed, and flicked it on. Instead of white light, red light poured out into the room, catching on dancing dust particles in the air. A phantom body appeared in the path of the light, curled up in the blankets on the bed. Its image flickered visibly, like something on a digital screen, and it turned over in its sleep.

"_Holy wan-Kenobi._" Claudia whispered.

"It's a durational spectrometer. It reads the afterimage of a specified area and projects the events of the previous five hours onto the space. This is you, or, presumably you, five hours ago."

Artie turned the knob on the device, and the image jittered rapidly, like a fast-forwarded film. Hologram-Claudia rolled back and forth, frequently throwing off the blankets, and pulling them back on, then rubbing her face agitatedly.

"We've got to fix the heater in this house." Steve muttered.

"_Shhh!"_ Artie held his fingers steady on the knob, brows furrowed, staring intently at the holographic image. Suddenly, he flicked the knob in the opposite direction, and the image froze. "_There."_

Claudia slid silently off the dresser as Steve inched forward, the two of them squinting through the red haze of the spectrometer. Artie turned the device back and forth, letting the light fall across the length of the bed and most of the other half of the room.

"Artie…" Steve began slowly, "What are we seeing?"

The phantom Claudia was on the bed, curled up under the blankets as in most other frames of the feedback. There was nothing striking about her in this particular frame, she had not moved from her position during the previous minute of fast-forwarding - fast asleep, and not at all the point of contention in the image.

It was the space around her that dug the furrow in Artie's brows.

The entire space around Claudia's sleeping form was distorted in either one of two ways. Toward the direction of the headboard, beginning very close to the back of her head, yet not intersecting with her, the entire image was pinched. That is, the area was squeezed, such that an image including the headboard, the wall, and even space _beyond_ the wall in the hallway were all compressed into the area between her hair and the headboard. When Artie passed the spectrometer over the headboard, the image came from further and further away, until the image that appeared where the wall should have been, was a compressed image of the yard outside.

Toward her feet was a different distortion, a distinct stretching of space, such that the edge of her bed extended far beyond where it should have ended, all the way toward where the opposite wall should have appeared.

"This happened at roughly 6am this morning. Just two hours before I sent Leena in here to check on Claudia. It lasts," Artie twisted the knob forward, "For no more a split second."

"It's a glitch." Steve offered.

"This device does not glitch." Artie clicked the spectrometer off and placed it back in the carpet bag. "We're dealing with a quantifiable, physical anomaly in Claudia's bed that completely enveloped her."

"Now that just sounds insulting." she muttered dryly.

"And your wit is returning to you," Artie said, dismissing the content of the quip. "You're acting more and more like the Claudia we know, as if slipping into her shedded skin."

"And now I'm reptilian."

Steve grinned, and this time it stuck.

The way he'd spoken on her behalf before and how he'd navigated around her unique situation, came off as a kind of brotherly protectiveness. Combined with the begrudging, father-like concern from Artie, and Claudia was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the investment these people had in her well-being. They were to her, still strangers, yet the Good Samaritan types, or the kindly neighbors one introduces herself to upon moving in, yet unintentionally spends the entire afternoon chatting and eating in their company. The most perturbing aspect of the situation, though, was the reciprocating feeling that had started to bud in her chest. She was a familiar person, but off by the smallest degree, and this familiar-yet-strange component of her existence might be considerably more disorienting to them.

"Artie, right? Short for Arthur?"

Artie peered over his glasses. "That's my name, yes."

"Where do we go from here?"

"We go," Artie said, gathering up his bag, "to the Warehouse."


	9. Primateologists Are Not Paid Enough

_There's a new supervisor today. We sent the other one away. It was during one of our room wars, and the supervisor came in at the wrong time, before the mess had ended. She jumped out before he could move, she grabbed on with her teeth until his hand bled, dark red, almost purple, leaving drips on the floor. He fell and curled against the wall, and Lucy didn't know how to fight his back, so she left to fight someone else. I liked him, I screamed when he crumpled. He wouldn't move or turn around, but I went over to him and had my arm around his back, so no one else would bite him without facing me first._

_I was shaking when the commotion finally died down – a staffer had opened the automatic door to the play area, and everyone ran out of the typing room to go there, though I stayed. They closed it after everyone left, and then they came in the room to remove me from the supervisor. Their touch was gentle, and they whispered in quiet voices and lifted my arm off him, Aaron. A small pool of red had dripped on the floor, and the staffers pulled him up under his arms, and supported him out the door. I followed them until the doorway, where I stopped and watched them._

_Aaron turned around. "Thank you, Pete." He smiled, but his face was weak. I signed back._

Do you not like us?

_Aaron had his bitten hand clenched by his chest. He used the other to reply._

I like you.

_I hate Lucy. If she were me, she would have bitten herself ten times for the one time she bit Aaron. I wanted to fight her, and I would win, but she was kept away from everyone else since the incident._

_Sometimes I thought about going to her quiet room when no one was watching, opening the door and beating her up, and I can, but I don't want to. The staffers know me and I like them, they like me, and I don't want more problems for them. I'm angry though. I throw my animals across my quiet room and tear at them, and the stuffing comes out, and then I hate myself for breaking them. The stuffing is now in my bed, making it softer, so I curl up there whenever I have to be alone. I do my typing, letting the visitors admire me as much as they want to, and I'm always looking through the glass to see Aaron on the other side, but he's gone for sure._

_The new supervisor watches me, from behind curly, giant hair._


	10. Sober High

"So..." Claudia picked at her seat belt, lazily scratching a nail back and forth on the polyester. The sound produced a nagging, needling sound, as if her nail were instead scraping along the insides of their ears. Artie's arm twitched the slightest degree. They had, after beginning the drive, slipped into a state of odd silence. It's the silence that comes about naturally when several people share a small space, yet they are forcibly oriented such that they do not make eye contact with one another, and therefore do not feel obliged to fill the space between their eyes with words. Perhaps it is specific only to car rides.

The conversation was not picked up by Artie nor Steve, neither turned their gaze from the empty midwest road ahead, and Claudia slid down, the leather seat making a strained sound against her descent, slouching until her knees dug into the back of the passenger side seat.

"I have to get back to class by Monday, in case anyone's wondering," she blurted out.

"By Monday, we'll have everything sorted out, the real Claudia will be back, and she likely will not recall any strange, educational obligations that have been planted in her head." Artie replied curtly, eyes still pinned on the road.

Claudia's face slowly twisted into something like indignation, a gradual welling up of protestation that brought her upright in her seat. She leaned toward the space between Steve and Artie, her mouth dangerously close to Steve's ear.

"You know," her voice twittered, mockingly lyrical, "It's more than a little upsetting when someone suggests that your life is a farce."

"The thing we're dealing with," Artie began, absent-mindedly, "Can be one of two types of artifiacts - either you believe wholeheartedly in a very elaborate ruse," he cricked his neck, side-eying Claudia with caution, "Or your consciousness has been switched into the wrong body...in which case, it would be best if you knew as little as possible."

Steve seemed to tense, uncomfortably, and shifted in his seat away from Claudia's rising voice. "Did you see the point back there?" Claudia motioned with a thumb toward the rear window of the car, "I think you missed it. Does no one care that the lady in the video phone said that my school doesn't exist?"

Artie brought a hand to his face, and rubbed a palm vigorously across his nose and mouth. "Which is why I am of the opinion that your memories have been replaced with false memories. So I don't exactly have the patience to entertain this, nor to re-tell your life history prior to this point. It is my earnest hope that it will become unnecessary once we resolve this."

Claudia snorted her amusement. "And if your theory falls flat and lo and behold, I turn out to be a different Claudia?"

"With an identical appearance and with knowledge of two other identical people that exist in both lives?" It was Artie's turn to let out a short bark of laughter, which trailed off into a patronizing sigh.

Claudia's voice shook, words jumping and rattling against each other, her restraint draining out through a sieve.

"For someone as out of the loop as I am, I've been extremely trusting of all of you. I could've run. Bolted out that house the second I realized I was lost, and hitch-hiked back home. But it had to be Leena who came to wake me up. Bubbly and borderline creepy Leena, who tells people to open their doors, get out of their rooms, and socialize. If I hadn't, hippie Steve wouldn't have come in, and-"

She froze. Realization washed across her features, her mouth parted in incredulity, and she clapped her hands together with a crack that startled the other two. The car swerved as Artie frantically corrected for his surprise, and Steve's head knocked against the window. Low curses were let out by the two, as Artie's goatee quivered in annoyance, Steve massaged the tender section of his skull, yet Claudia was entirely absorbed in the gravity of her own epiphany.

"This is a trip," she whispered.

"Yeah, it definitely has been," Steve muttered, more irritated than he intended.

"No, the kid drugged me. I mean, maybe not maliciously, it's probably just a hallucinogen of some sort. That explains why everything's so vivid, it explains how some people I know are here, he came into my room and I didn't notice at first, he could have done something before..." she stopped short of elaboration, in part because of the details of the encounter and the subsequent reprimands were still fresh in her memory, and a considerable source of embarrassment, but also in part because of the futility of explaining one's thoughts to constructions of one's own mind. She sank back in her seat, her head spinning in wonder. Incredible. Adrenaline coursed through her system and she became acutely aware of the sound of her heart, its furious pumping now resonating in her ears, and slowly the light in the car separated from the shadows, laying a stark contrast across this world in her mind's eye. Claudia felt, in the very realest sense, as a physical object in space. Revelling in the manner with which her body existed in this plane, how it held itself together within the three dimensions, and how her form could not pass itself through the contrary forms of the car, the seats, and the window. She pressed her hand down into the leather, the material creasing under each finger, such strange fingers, and she was nearly overwhelmed by the actuality of force, pressure, and response. A smile began to spread across her lips. A muscular system and breathing being as a thing persisting through space-

"Hey."

Fingers snapped in the air in front of her face, and Claudia startled. Steve had turned around completely, his chin cradled in the space next to his headrest. He had reached an arm out and around to snap just inches from her nose.  
"Keep it together, Claude," he said, "If you're on something, I-we really don't care, you're a young adult, you do things. We get it. We've all been there."

Artie neither nodded, nor remarked on this statement, though his lips twitched almost imperceptibly. He cleared his throat, and narrowed his eyes with intense unnecessity at the empty gravel road.

The feeling had passed in Claudia, and she felt herself coiling back into mental sobriety. It was embarrassing how quickly it fled.

"Oh."

"Don't worry about us, just keep calm back there until we get to the Warehouse, and we'll get you whatever you need," Steve paused.

"I'm fine," Claudia mumbled, part relieved, part disappointed that this was not in fact her first transcendental experience.

"No, anything. If you need...food, or a place to lie down, you can do that there," Steve glanced at Artie, who again maintained a distinct lack of judgment regarding the circumstances.

"Really, I'm okay," Claudia said, "I mean, this multiple Claudia thing is still batty but apart from that, I've got it together."

Steve considered her carefully, eyes scanning her features, as she returned it with a blank expression. He settled back, exchanging a silent "What do you think?" glance with Artie, the result of which was either a resolution to trust Steve's instincts, or the assignment of him to the role of unwilling sober sitter. It seemed from his resigned sigh that the latter had been elected.

Claudia allowed a few moments to pass, the sound of tire crunching gravel filling the space. She leaned forward, cautiously, bringing her head once again between the driver and the passenger.

"But that 747 in the field over there isn't just me, right?"


	11. Flying Objects

The car screeched to a halt, and Claudia's head lurched forward to smack against the seat in front of her. She swore quietly, one hand cradling her skull and the other fumbling for the door handle, as Artie threw open his driver side door and hopped rather ungracefully onto the dirt road. Steve followed suit, striding briskly after the shorter man, and Claudia trailed after them at a distance.

The two men stopped just short of where the road met the grassy field. With eyes shaded against the low sun, they stared in incredulous silence. Claudia crept up beside Steve, and joined them in reveling at the curious juxtaposition of a grounded Boeing 747 in the middle of nowhere. Littered around it were pieces of scrap metal, in various stages of rust, as was the airplane itself.

"Well. That is indeed a commercial jet in the middle of a field of junk," Artie finally muttered, "Which, I might add, was never previously seen at this particular location."

"Plane looks old, like it's been through a lot, or it's from way back when," Steve added, "Do some artifacts try to follow each other to the Warehouse?" He glanced furtively at Artie, whose eyes were unreadable behind round-lensed sunglasses. Steve scratched the peach stubble on his chin, and scrunched his face against the sun, exaggerating his skepticism. "Can we even fit that in the Warehouse?"

"In my experience, artifacts tend to move _away_ from the Warehouse, rather than toward it," Artie said, "They don't like to be seen, don't like to be found, they hitchhike on people, and this seems to be...overwhelmingly not the case." Both men almost simultaneously scratched their chins in thought, and upon noticing their synchronicity, they lowered their hands abruptly with thinly veiled discomfort.

"Why do I get the feeling that this warehouse is a capital W, filled with importance, more-than-just-an-ordinary warehouse?" Claudia asked.

"Claudia, please - we're working," Artie replied curtly.

The girl wrinkled her nose and sank down into a squatting position, focusing her already waning curiosity onto the gravel-dirt combo of the road. She was growing uninterested in the continued ponderance of yet another absurdity in an already bizarre morning. Her bitten-down nails picked tiredly at the tiny pebbles, until the more organized portion of her brain directed her hand to arrange a cluster of them in a neat, rounded pile.

Claudia sat back on her heels and glanced up lazily, across the field at the old plane, and back down to the pile of pebbles. Slowly, her eyes widened in disbelief at the bits of gravel, until she hurriedly flicked her gaze back and forth between the field and the rocks.

"Probability."

Artie and Steve turned at the sound of Claudia's voice to look down at the girl, who was sitting in the dirt, still donned in her pajamas.

"You know the um - that thing, about planes made out of junk, from a tornado," she added, her expression now frantically pleading. They remained silent, until Artie removed his sunglasses to reveal an utterly exasperated gaze.

"Claudia - we need you to focus here, and if you are _not_ in the appropriate state of mind, then we can't entertain you."

"_Listen to me_," Claudia stumbled to her feet, her socked toes catching on the elastic cuffs of her sweatpants, until she righted herself, "You get tornadoes out here, right?"

"This is South Dakota, yes," Artie murmured.

"It is statistically impossible for a tornado to go through a junkyard, and randomly whip together pieces of junk to form a fully functional passenger plane. Someone said that, that's a thing," she exclaimed.

Steve's expression remained blank and uncomprehending, though recognition slowly dawned across Artie's features. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Claudia, mouth agape.  
"You're suggesting that the airplane itself is not the artifact, and instead we have an artifact that makes impossible, theoretical circumstances into reality?"

"Yeah, that. It's an analogy someone threw out about a century ago," Claudia shrugged.

"And, that might explain why we have two identical-looking Claudias who claim to have completely different lives?" Steve ventured. Before either could reply, Artie turned briskly on his heels and headed back to the car, where he extracted his black carpet bag. He drew the mint-tin videophone out from its contents, and flipped open the lid.

"The game is afoot, Stevey," Claudia said with a smirk, which quickly turned questioning. "You do go by Stevey, right? I'm going to call you that anyway, regardless of whether you want me to."

Steve winced. "My high school girlfriend used to call me that, before I figured out I liked guys."

"I retract my previous statement," Claudia said quickly. Steve let out a short laugh, as Claudia felt her face redden..

"You usually call me 'Jinksy,' and I'm fine with that."

Claudia gave a wry smile, and turned her attention back toward the logical improbability sitting out in the field before them. The sounds of Artie's frantic conversation over the video device punctuated the otherwise serene morning air, at first urgently matter-of-fact in addressing Leena, and then voice rising in volume after he switched the call over to Pete and Myka.

"Artie's a pretty high-strung guy," Claudia remarked in a low voice, "Kind of dotty, too. Absent-minded professor type."

Steve snorted in amusement. "You could say that."

"So, what's his story; does he have a wife, or kids?" she glanced over at Steve, and quickly added, "Or husband, or partner, whatever works..."

Before Steve could reply, Artie snapped the video tin shut, and called over toward them.

"We're going in," he announced, "Be careful in approaching the plane, in case another tornado manifests. We'll take a quick look in the interior, and - Claudia!"

Claudia jumped at his sudden cry of alarm, and whirled around to face him.

"No, behind!-"

Artie's shout was cut short, as an object with the shape, size, and texture of a football collided with the back of Claudia's head, though the resulting noise upon impact sounded considerably more metallic than that which could have been produced by a regulation football. Sparks burst into in Claudia's vision, and the sound instantly drained from the world, swirling down some neurological pipe in her mind. A panic-stricken Steve reached out his arms to catch her before she fell, but she careened in the opposite direction, the horizon spinning, before she crumpled onto the dirt road. One arm, bent awkwardly at the elbow, encircled the small pile of pebbles she had made - the little mountain resting in the crook of her arm.


	12. The Ordinary World

Claudia awoke to the chatter of voices.

She turned over slowly and curled up, knees brought toward her chest. Her eyes were pressed shut, prolonging her confrontation with whatever reality might be forthcoming.

She ran her hands across a comforter that was draped over her, at first hesitantly, then with a sudden, escalating excitement. The stitching. Familiar fabric. The comforter from her dorm room. With a jump, she sprang up in bed, beaming relief, before her heart bolted up into her throat and she shrank back into the covers.

The door of her room was propped open, and a few of her floor-mates were chatting directly outside, entirely oblivious to her.

"Shut the door!" she yelped. The students shot her first confused, then irritated glances, before leisurely strolling away in a huddle down the hall. Claudia scampered to the edge of her bed, stretched out her leg, wedged her foot between the door and the wall and kicked it loose.

It hit something on the way shut.

A dull noise, in fact, the precise noise of a door hitting a forehead, followed by a low curse and shuffled footsteps, brought Claudia off her bed and to its source. She heaved the door back open with a force that sent it banging back against the interior wall, the noise echoing down the hall.

"_You!_"

Zen boy, with hemp cloth jacket, ear-flapped hat, and a growing red spot on his forehead, stood in bewildered pain in front of the now hysterical Claudia.

"I didn't mean for the organization to bring anything up," he scrambled for words, "I mentioned it to someone, I said that my nonconformity practice didn't go well, and I thought they would leave it at that. I swear, I didn't want them to tell your RA, I just wanted to be done with it. I'm leaving the group, it was crazy to begin with-"

"Has anyone ever called you Stevey?" Claudia blurted out, cutting through his babble.

The boy opened his mouth to continue rattling on, but he stopped, as a kind of confusion spread across his features. "Excuse me?"

Claudia leaned in, a kind of excitement bubbling in her stomach. Her voice had dulled to a whisper, cracking as she spoke.

"Jinksy?"

The boy's jaw hung open, and he seemed to contemplate replying, some internal battle of priorities taking place in the space behind his eyes. Claudia looked on with intense curiosity and the tiniest sense of dread, should she be wrong, yet more so if she should be right. The former would end in embarrassment and a curt "Sorry, I've been mistaken," though the other would lend credulity to a wholly inexplicable turn of events - something she was not sure she wished to confront at this hour of the morning.

Or, perhaps she would never know.

The boy snapped his mouth shut. He eased back onto one foot, body pivoting away from the doorway. He possessed an alternative set of choices than hers; fight, or flight.

"Wait-"

Claudia fell forward in a lunge, scrabbling at the air, trying to lock her fingers around a baggy jacket sleeve. But the boy sprang back, pulling away just beyond her reach, before he sprinted down the hall. He slipped through the throng of Claudia's chatting dorm mates, a shoulder knocking into one of theirs, causing a girl's books to fall, piling onto the floor. Claudia swore loudly, and moved as if to pursue him, but was overwhelmed by a sudden surge of early-morning grogginess, which she had all but suppressed up until this point. The hallway seemed to stretch before her, longer than it had ever appeared - the floor looked unwelcoming to her bare feet, and the more self-conscious side of her recognized that her polar bear print pajama pants were not exactly the attire she wished to be seen in, in a cross-campus chase. Furthermore, she was altogether unsure of how she might even begin to explain her knowledge to this Steve, if she could catch him. At the moment, the only rational explanation, considering that she just awoke in her usual bed, was that she had a very vivid, and very disturbing dream last night. A dream which revealed previously unknown facts to her.

She bitterly retreated back into her room, away from the prying eyes of the people down the hall.

It was 9 minutes before her first class of the day, which was located on the opposite side of campus. Despite whatever disorienting experience she had the previous evening, she still had an education to attend to, as apathetic as she felt toward it. She determined that teeth-brushing could wait, and a quick running through of her fingers in her hair would suffice for grooming today. After slipping on a pair jeans that had been crumpled at the foot of her bed, she jammed her feet into sneakers, grabbed her backpack, and power walked down the hall.


	13. Guest Lecturer

Claudia was simultaneously spiteful and grateful toward whomever designed comfortable lecture chairs. Within five minutes of closing her eyes, slouching down, and folding her arms across her chest, she had achieved a state of mental weightlessness that Buddhists spent years perfecting. Calm. Serenity. It was peculiar that she could never achieve this in her own room, lying on her own bed, for there were a multitude of distractions and things back there that she'd feel obligated to do. Here, she was fulfilling her duties as a student, by the mere fact of her presence. Her courses required nothing else of her. That was the experimental nature of the institution – one in which students were left to their own motivations to drag themselves to class, and by simply filling a chair in a hall, they would pass. Oddly enough, this honor system placed a profound, existential kind of stress on the average student. No grades, no concrete way to fail, so how would you know if you'd _failed_?

Claudia drifted along the edge of sleep, her head periodically bobbing up and down, dipping into this ethereal current. She had, as always, opted for the seat on the very interior of a row, so her shoulder had firm support against the wall as she dozed.

If, somehow, the thoughts that meandered through her mind could be made outwardly visible – if everyone's thoughts were somehow externally projected into the air, above their heads – how might that change her current state? The nature of her latest psychological disturbance, if made known, would likely utterly repel those around her, and, possibly, attract the curiosity of individuals who might not have otherwise interacted with her.

If everyone then, knew everything about everyone else, would people eschew interaction with others, disgusted by the unfiltered flow of the id, or would all people acclimate and achieve a level of complete nonchalance toward the bestial thoughts of others?

Within minutes, thoughts began arising independently of her direction, haphazard thoughts, the kind that manifest vividly on the inside of one's eyelids for moments before turning black again. Quick flashes of scenes, pulled from the recesses of her mind. Driving along a highway bordered by pine trees, accompanied by a floating sensation. An older boy tearing open a packet of powdered cheese and pouring it into a pot on a stove. A three-second movie clip of a storm at sea, a man stepping back from the helm, and lifting his hands to the sky.

"Hi. So, as you've just heard, my name is Arthur Nielsen-"

Claudia was yanked up through the surface of her subconscious – at once being pulled, and doing the pulling, in that mental endeavor of rousing one's self from a very comfortable nap. She resisted for a moment, wishing to sink back down to peace, but something else seemed to take her by the shoulder and shake her awake.

Her eyes snapped open. From her slouched state, she sat upright rather abruptly, shaking the row of seats, and a student two seats down from her regarded her with annoyance.

The man at the podium spoke, "I'm going to keep this brief, since I know that you all want to leave, and I highly doubt that any of you would be interested at all in my work."

There was a titter of laughter in the audience, though it faded to uncomfortable whispers as the expression of the speaker remained humorless.

"Nevertheless, I would like to invite all of you – well, not all of you, there is only one position available – to look into the internship opening at the anthropology exhibit over on the east side of campus."

The usual course lecturer clicked on her collar-mic and interjected with a smile,

"How many of you have been to the anthropology exhibit?"

Students heads turned to examine the numbers. The guest held up a defiant palm toward the lecturer. "Please, that's not necessary."

No hands were raised. The man removed his glasses and rubbed at his rather bushy brows in exasperation, politely ignoring (or simply oblivious) to the lecturer's discomfort.

He replaced the spectacles and continued, "Now, I realize that the nature of this offer makes it highly unlikely for anyone to want to apply, because you can do the math, and you realize that I'm offering one position to a lecture hall with approximately three hundred students. None of you will want to apply, thinking that everyone else will apply, realizing that your chances of succeeding are infinitesimal. So-"

He leaned across the podium, as much as his stature and girth would allow, until his moustache hairs bristled against the microphone. The students unconsciously leaned in as well.

"_Do not apply_," he urged, "It's not worth your time."

He leaned back and immediately picked up his briefcase to leave, as a murmur ran through the students, mingled with surprised laughter. "Oh, and thank you," he added, bobbing his head back toward the microphone. He shook the hand of a confused professor, then passed her and departed for the side door.

"Question!" a voice rang out from the middle of the students. The murmur died down, and the man stopped abruptly. "What does the internship involve?"

The guest walked briskly back to where the professor stood, which was closer than the podium, and brought his head inappropriately close toward her collar where her personal microphone was. She startled, but did not step back.

"You will do meticulous and mind-numbing grunt work that I will give you neither money nor transcript credit for. _Thank you_."

Without a further word, he strode out the side door.

Scattered, sarcastic clapping broke out, though it did not pick up steam, and before the professor had time to collect herself the students were moving out the lecture hall doors en masse. Claudia stayed transfixed in her seat, a ringing in her ears.

That was him.


	14. Anthropology

The door to the anthropology exhibit could not have been more dubiously located. The exhibit wasn't a building in its own right. The door wasn't accessible from the outdoors, and one had to navigate the halls of anthropology complex in order to find it. It was not shown on campus maps, or rather, it was listed in the legend, but its corresponding symbol appeared nowhere on the map itself. It seemed, for all purposes, to be a place that the university would advertise and occasionally mention to prove their dedication to the social sciences, but aside from these bone-throws, they would rather like to keep it hidden.

And it seemed logical. The exhibit caretaker, if his guest appearance was an accurate representation of his character, was eccentric, frank, and not someone you'd like to introduce to university beneficiaries. Claudia wondered if the man had previously been more approachable, secured tenure, and then let his mind slowly atrophy in some de-humidified crypt in the corner of campus.

She then wondered why she was pursuing this thread.

It was believable for her mind to transplant people she knew, that is, the Buddhist cultist and Leena, into some waking hallucination. It was also likely that her mind could create strangers – the others from that place – by generating composite faces, bodies, and behaviors from people she's met over her lifetime. But to have the precise likeness of a person whom she had not yet met, whom she couldn't have possibly encountered before then, appear in this dream and show up the following day; that was a pure impossibility.

In her snaking through the halls, she had more than once passed the same metallic door, an inappropriately large door with something like a brass ship's wheel as the only sign of its opening mechanism. She had assumed it was a wall fixture with no actual function, something to commemorate a certain anthropological age. It was on her third roundabout sweep of the halls, the last attempt before resigning herself to her dorm, that she noticed the small placard at floor level next to the door.

_Items in the anthropology exhibit will cause irreversible bodily harm. _

_Enter at your own risk._

Here was the clearest sign of an occupant who did not want to be bothered.

Claudia stood, wide-stance in front of the door, arms folded, silently amused by the neuroses of this strange man. His mannerisms, style of dress, and everything down to the trim of his goatee were exactly as she had seen them in that bizarre dream. The Zen boy had been remarkably different though – more matured, Buddhism intact, but hair kept in a short, clean cut. Hemp jacket abandoned, and replaced with a certain assuredness that was pathetically absent in his doppelganger here.

And her? _Her hair had been dyed._

A faint buzzing noise pulled her pack to the present, and a security camera on the ceiling behind her slowly turned on its axis. It had previously been pointing down the length of the hall where she'd passed through several times prior, but now it rotated until faced the door – and then tilted down to gaze directly where she stood.

She lifted a hand, but quickly curled in her fingers and decided better of waving.

Something shifted in the door, the sounds of metal clanging on metal, reverberating down the hall, and Claudia withdrew against the opposite wall. The little camera buzzed as it pivoted toward her new location.

The wheel spun on the door, and with another clunk, the massive door creaked ajar.

Bristles poked out from around it, and glasses followed, until the face of that same man peered around the edge to stare directly at her. Its eyes were masked with suspicion.

"Are you the chancellor?"

Before Claudia could answer, the man interrupted himself.

"No that's absurd, you're too young, you must be a student. You're here for the internship."

He paused. His heavy brows furrowed.

"_Why?_"

Claudia, still backed against the wall, struggled to recall the dialogue she had rehearsed countless times while wandering through the halls. Her mouth opened, but only to reveal uncomfortably clenched teeth. No sound was produced.

"Are you mute? Do you want the internship?" the man's voice became irritated, impatient. "Or are you…_oh_." His brows un-creased, expression softening. The man inched through the narrow opening into the hallway, and straightened his back, apparently flustered. "You want to see the exhibit?" He brought his hands together, attempting to fold them nonchalantly before him, but instead he began to wring them unconsciously.

"Yeah," Claudia regained her voice, though did not move. "I just want to look around, but if you're busy I can come back another time."

The man weighed this notion, and the small security camera turned until it focused on him, as if it too was waiting for a response. The man's eyes darted up to the camera, he scowled visibly at it, then let out a sigh.

"No, no, it's fine. I can give you a tour today. Follow me."

He slipped back through the doorway, and seconds passed before Claudia found the faculties to uproot her feet and cautiously follow him through. She found herself in near darkness, if not for the small stream of fluorescent light flowing in from the hallway.

"Oh, and close the door behind you."


	15. 20,000 Leads Under the Sea

"And lock it," a voice called out, and footsteps followed it away.

Stumbling around in the dark, Claudia felt along the door until she came across the same kind of ship wheel that had been on the other side. Had she no reason to believe that this stranger was the key to deciphering her hallucination, she would have preferred to avoid locking herself in an unfamiliar, dark place with an eccentric, graying man. Her heart pounded nonetheless, and more than once she had considered leaving altogether. Though, it was some bizarre sense of purpose, or more likely, her willful disregard of every shred of common sense she'd acquired prior to this point, that pulled her through these definitive motions.

She turned the wheel by its spokes and once the lock clanked into place, a low hum sounded through the darkness – echoing through a much larger space than she anticipated. Slowly, a dim, blue glow, emanating from hundreds of thousands of pin-sized bulbs lining the walls, filled the space. They looked, she thought, like the glowing specks of nocturnal plankton she'd seen in pictures, drifting on the surface of the tide, mirroring a star-filled sky above. She'd never been able to experience them firsthand, though, but this was something close. A kind of excitement brewed in her chest, and the soft blue light fell across what was a purest expression of childlike wonder. Claudia was not in a room, rather, she was on a square platform at the top of a dizzying stairwell, the lights chasing the stairs down along the walls.

The man stood at the bottom of the first flight, leaning against the railing, not casually, but more as a necessary support.

"See these?" he gestured at the lights, "One hundred percent sustainable lighting. Powered by you and me – well, not right now, since we're in here. Students and professors walk across carpeting all across campus, generating minute amounts of static electricity which in all other places unfortunately goes to waste. I modified the power grid a few decades back when they switched to carpeting, allowing me to harness the energy for the exhibit.

A snort escaped Claudia, yet the man's expression remained unchanged.

Claudia's smile slipped off her face.

"Oh…you're serious?"

The man glared, as if going far out of his way to reiterate the obvious. "Why would I lie during a tour of my exhibit? That's completely counterintuitive."

He turned and began his descent down the next flight of steps, and Claudia hesitated, before following at a trot.

"Sorry. It just seemed unlikely. I haven't heard of anything like it."

"That's because there isn't anything like it." The man had slowed, and Claudia had caught up beside him. He seemed to be struggling with the physical exertion, though he was making a considerable effort at masking this discomfort, and Claudia made a considerable effort not to notice. She drew her attention toward conversation.

"Has anyone thought of using these lights? I mean, no one's come here and wanted to buy this technology?"

"No. Well, I don't exactly remember. The last tour I gave was sometime between six and seven years ago, and the least of my problems was how everyone reacted to the lighting system."

Claudia halted on a step under a small patch of blue. She had been warily trusting, despite the trek thus far, while under the assumption that all visitors to the exhibit followed this unusual protocol – the darkness and descent. The fact that she was the first person in seven years, in this situation, after the man's mind may as well have had plenty of time to rattle around down here, with minimal outside interaction, was deeply concerning.

It was dim, though in spite of that, Claudia could see the exasperation plainly across his features. He spoke in what was possibly the softest voice he could muster, "You will not return from this exhibit diseased, dismembered, cursed, or otherwise chemically altered as long as you adhere _strictly_ to the safety guidelines, as I verbally convey them to you throughout this tour."

"Gee thanks, Doctor Moreau, I feel much better now." Claudia's said, with more of a sting than she had intended.

The man's countenance darkened, and he addressed her in a low voice, brows twitching. "I am very, _very_ much not in the mood to do this right now. I have a veritable plethora of things I have to do by tonight, and giving an unanticipated tour is at the very bottom of my priorities, _so if you please_." He waved his arm rather violently in the direction of the descending stairwell, his sleeve nearly catching on the railing. "And if not, _then go_."

Upon seeing her only lead hanging by a thread, and knowing full well that there would be few, if any opportunities to find this man in a better mood, and even fewer to find him at all, Claudia hopped down the steps and took up a quick pace ahead of him.

"I won't keep you from your plethora." Claudia murmured.

"I sincerely hope not."


	16. Welcome

"Wait there," he panted, and pointed at a particular stretch of the railing. They had arrived, finally, some great distance beneath the surface of the university, down the never ending blue-lit stairwell, to the bottom-most platform - one that was bordered on one side by railing, and on the other by a brick wall, large windows, and an office-looking door. The lights ended just above this platform, and Claudia couldn't see down through the darkness to determine how tall this building within a building was; whether they had reached the top of some underground skyscraper, or if a floor lied just beneath them. She took the time to lean heavily against the railing, breath rasping, as both parties had long since passed the point of self-consciousness with regard to their physical shortcomings. The man composed himself on the opposite side by the wall, an elbow and forearm braced against it as a support, fingers clutching his glasses, as his other hand dabbed a handkerchief across his forehead and his saturated brows.

They stood apart in this manner, heaving in uncomfortable unison, until the man spoke between deep inhalations.

"What do you go by?"

Claudia turned around, mouth hanging open and teeth gritted, in an unintentional snarl. She half-expected another face to emerge into the blue glow, as the addressee of his question. None did.

"Oh. I'm Claudia," she said quietly, with as much oxygen she could spare.

"And I am Arthur Nielsen, as you already know," the man replaced his glasses, and stood upright, seeming to muster up an air of presentability. He cleared his throat, and rested a hand on a switch that stuck out of the brick wall. Claudia eyed him with skepticism. He returned her apparent lack of faith with a sniff.

"As director and primary overseer of the NU Collection for Items of Historical Significance, I would like to say..."

He threw the switch, rather dramatically so, and the blue lights instantly flicked out, leaving them in a split second of absolute, disorienting darkness. No sooner could Claudia react, when blinding fluorescent lights burst into her vision, lighting in rapid sequence beginning above their platform, and racing away across the ceiling of a gigantic space. As they did, they illuminated the ground floor below, not too far down, and upon it stood rows upon rows of towering, metallic shelves. Bordering these on either side, though with space enough between for a dozen rows, were brick walls of the same make as the one beside their platform. This wall extended down to the floor, in which there was another door that could allow one to walk out among the shelves. These shelves seemed to stretch back to infinity, and the light did appear to blur beyond a certain point, and Claudia could scarcely make out the wall at the farthest side of this room, if it could be called that. The stairwell they had come down was much like the chimney of this strange space, and they had descended at last into its true interior - ceiling barely distinguishable through the ventilation tubes, electrical wires, and massive hanging lights. A few of these swayed precariously from twisted and frayed cables, and the entire place gave off a distinct sense of overwhelming antiquity. It was in appearance, size, and function, some gargantuan, underground warehouse.

"Welcome..." Arthur swept his arm through the air, gesturing out into the veritable chasm of space, "To the Anthropology Exhibit. Created at the request - well, _demand_ of Friedrich Nietzsche, after he heard that a few American followers of his had founded and named this university after him."

Arthur approached the railing beside Claudia, who simply stared in disbelief at the exhibit before her. He continued in his matter-of-fact, tour guide tone. "Nietzsche sent a series of letters to the then-chancellor in 1895, dictating that a storehouse for antiques be constructed on campus."

"Eight-" Claudia's voice cracked, and she hurriedly coughed, before attempting speech again. "1895? But he was crazy then." She ventured.

Arthur nodded. "He was very mad in his final years, yes. Most of the letters were unintelligible, and it took some time to decipher anything meaningful from them. The first attempt resulted in the collection of every teapot on the western coast of the United States, to be categorized and stored away on our shelves."  
Claudia raised an eyebrow.

"He was very insistent about the teapots," he continued, "Eventually, the government caught wind of the operation, though they decided that Nietzsche was too big of a name on which to pin grand larceny, and they let him and his followers make off with just a slap on the wrist. Most of the teapots were returned." Arthur leaned in and pointed at a section of the exhibit near the middle. "Those two rows are teapots."

Claudia squinted out across the storeroom floor, scanning what little of the shelves she could see, until her eyes fell across a familiar assortment of interlocked wooden sticks fairly near to where she stood. They were the kind, she recognized, for propping up plants that needed to climb.

"You've got a garden in here?" She asked with interest.

"_That_ is one of Gregor Mendel's trellises, used in his experiments with pea plant genetics," Arthur replied.

"Why's it here? Shouldn't it be in some museum out in - well, on the surface?"

"Ohhh ho ho, _no_," Arthur chuckled, suddenly amused by her naivete, in a disturbingly ominous fashion, "If a person, you for example, were to come into contact with that trellis, it would have _very disastrous consequences_."

Contrary to his expectations, Claudia did not instantaneously reject the notion of a pea plant trellis that housed unforeseen danger. In fact, she accepted that assertion without much mental effort, and instead inquired, unperturbed, as to the nature of its danger, "So, what, if I touch it, my skin turns green and wrinkled? Or, bright yellow and smooth?"

"Hah! Now, _that_ would be appropriate," Arthur said, "But no, that would be far too innocuous. If you disturb the pea plants, your genes will switch their dominant and recessive capabilities - that is, the traits that your genetic code is hiding would then become apparent. Certainly not a good thing, if you're a carrier for any unfortunate diseases."

"And that's the chemical alteration part of this tour," Claudia offered.

"Yes. Now, if you'll come into the office area please..." Arthur turned toward the door in the wall, though something stopped him, and instead, he looked back at Claudia with a curious expression.

"It's funny," he began, almost suspiciously, "Usually sometime before this, a person on my tour would have expressed much more incredulity at my statements."

Claudia unconsciously brought her hands behind her back, where she twisted her fingers in apprehension. "You remember what the people on your last tour did? Wasn't that seven or some years ago?"

"It was a very memorable occasion, I can assure you," Arthur said dryly. "Why aren't you invoking rationality and reason to me? Why not, 'Hey Mr. Nielsen, touching a bunch of sticks isn't going to alter your genome.'? What reason do you have to believe me? _Are you unwell?_" He peered at her from beneath increasingly quivering brows.

Claudia managed, despite the pattering sensation she felt beginning in her chest, to match his gaze with one of quiet collectedness. She brought her hands back in front of her, and folded them in a gesture of nonchalance.

"I'm very good at suspending my disbelief."


	17. Pete

Something tapped against the glass.

It had been only two days since she began her part-time job with the philosophy department - this day being spent in peace, with a book in her hand, and a pleasant lack of personal interaction. Aside from an unexpected check-in from the chancellor the day prior, who had determined that her albeit brief presence might be reassuring the staff, there seemed to be few other interruptions here that could bring a book down from under Myka's nose. This was every bibliophile's dream, and unbelievable too; a quiet place where one was paid to sit, read, and perform minimal obligations to retain their job.

The chancellor had gathered the overseers of the exhibit in the supervisor's room, the one in which Myka now sat, with its long glass wall between those inside and the exhibit room, and she had given a short speech entailing all the critical buzz words and pacifying phrases of reassurance that one could muster.

"In light of the recent incident - which was truly harrowing, and I extend my deepest sympathies to Mr. Aaron Lau for whom we wish for a complete and quick recovery - we are calling for the creation of a special task force, comprised of select staff, students, and community members, whose objective will be the thorough investigation and documentation of the events that transpired here two weeks ago. By March of next year, they will submit a full investigative report on the precise sequence of events that led to-"

The chancellor stood with her back toward the glass wall as the exhibit caretakers, the newest of which was Myka, faced her in a cluster between the sparse furniture in the room, all with thinly veiled discomfort at their intimate proximity toward one another. Myka's soon-to-be desk, a massive multi-tiered thing of metal, blockaded the room on one side, and on the other, five widescreen television monitors were mounted on the wall, in no logical or practical pattern, with ten smaller tv sets haphazardly strewn upon a table beneath them. Small pieces of tape with names scribbled onto them were stuck onto each of the ten sets. All screens displayed live black and white security footage of various locations around the facility.

Two hours prior to the chancellor's address, Myka had a hurried briefing with Aaron, who although he was no longer physically working in the department, he was a benefit-receiving employee whose allotted medical leave had just expired, and thus was required to resume his less strenuous duties. Having no forewarning as to this obligation, he was forced to meet with Myka for an impromptu information session, in a doctor's office on campus, as a nurse slowly pulled the stitches out from his mangled finger.

"The job's not too bad," Aaron said. He sat on the edge of the exam table, leaning on his left hand, as the nurse slathered the other with antiseptic fluid. Myka was told he was a graduate student, though he seemed to be on the older side, as far as they went. He still appeared to carry himself, and conduct himself, in a sort of carefree, college student way, and despite the current circumstances, he was overwhelmingly nonchalant.

"Mr. Lau, are you sure this meeting is...appropriate?" Myka asked. Her eyes began wandering down the length of his arm toward the collection of tiny stitches, though she quickly caught herself, and suddenly felt the need to sink down into the armchair opposite Aaron.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he said with a scowl, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm on plenty of painkillers, so I can't feel a thing."

"Oh, fantastic," Myka said, leaning back slowly against the cushion, lights dancing in her vision.

"You can't really blame the kids for acting out," he began. The nurse picked up a small pair of metal scissors from the operating tray, and turned toward his hand. Myka made a point of maintaining rigid eye contact with Aaron.

"Kids," she repeated, incredulously.

"Yeah, we're not supposed to get close to them, but you work alone with them all day and you realize how much they're like children. Loads of fun sometimes, but damn rowdy."

"And what do I need to know?" Myka asked, fingers contracting around the armrest, as a faint snip came from the direction of Aaron's hand. She curled her lips inward, feeling how dry they'd suddenly become.  
"You can start by learning their names. The girls are Cepria, Neandra, Florence, Antessa, and Lucy. The boys are Heidelberg, Rudolf, Guster, Eric, and Pete."

"And Lucy's the one that..." Myka's voice faltered.

"Yeah," Aaron's features tensed, in apparent pain. Myka shot a quick glance at his hand to ascertain if the something had gone awry, just as a thin thread was pulled out of the skin above his knuckle. Apparently not. "Poor girl. I wished they'd done something about her earlier, it wouldn't have gotten this bad. It's a weird situation they're all in," Aaron gave a small shrug. "Eight came from a breeding program just for the exhibit, so they're tame and easy to manage, but Lucy and Pete were rescues from backyard zoos. Lucy's never gotten on well, but Pete's...shoot, how do I even begin with _Pete_?"

Myka watched, thoughtfully, as Aaron looked down at his left, intact hand, and he began tapping and curling its fingers in a slow pattern. "I almost fainted after Lucy acted out and the other chimps all started fighting. I mean, it was _bloody_. I couldn't stand up, which was probably for the best since they wouldn't find me threatening as a lump on the ground," Aaron let out a dry laugh, "But he stayed with me and just, _watched_ me. He even asked me if I still liked them afterward, because he was worried I'd hold a grudge against him or something." The man was leaning forward now, with a sort of childlike amusement in his expression, and any pretense of an instructional meeting had since then vanished. Though, there was hardly a sense of professionalism to begin with.

The nurse pulled back gently on Aaron's shoulder. "Can you keep your back straight? Just one more, and we'll be done," he picked up the forceps and leaned over Aaron's hand again.

"Pete signs?" Myka cut in, a faint urgency in her voice.

"They were all taught to sign, but Pete caught on the fastest. It's a shame none of them are actually literate, though. He's got a lot going on in his head," Aaron added.

Myka nodded silently, her gaze growing distant.

"And there you are," the nurse said, dabbing a last bit of antiseptic on Aaron's fingers, before tossing the cotton ball lightly into the trash. He peeled off his gloves and motioned for Aaron to stand. "I'd recommend that you stay away from sharp-teethed primates for a while. People included," he gave a quick wink. "You don't sound so lucky, though, ma'am."

"I'll be fine," Myka rose from her chair and offered her left hand for Aaron to shake. "I'll keep my distance."

The tapping continued.

Myka had been thoroughly absorbed in the novel in her hands, though the persistent noise finally persuaded her to lower her book from her face, and swivel in her chair toward the glass. She was, in theory, supposed to be checking the television monitors at regular intervals, though today was a non-viewing day, and the chimps were free to wander through their part of the facility without any structured exhibition. The other side of the glass was the typing room, the main attraction and only room visible to the public, who viewed the exhibit through the opposite glass wall and could consequently see through to the supervisor's office on the other side. Connected to the typing room on one of the solid sides by a remotely operated door was the playroom, and from there, the ten separate rooms for each of the chimps branched off. Each of the smaller tv sets was linked to a camera in these rooms, and the last time she checked, most of them had been napping in their separate chambers. Only one door connected the worlds of the two, embedded in the wall opposite the playroom door and visible from Myka's vantage point, which led to an exam room. One chimp, perhaps Heidelberg, had been in the typing room, sitting idly on one of the desks and picking through his leg hair.

Myka was unaware of how much time had passed since this check-up, but now one of them, a male, had come to the glass and was tapping repeatedly with a forefinger to get Myka's attention. Upon making eye contact, the chimp began signing.

_Hello. What is your name?_

The dexterity with which he articulated the words exceeded that of any of the others she had interacted with. She closed her book and set it down on the desk, and inched her chair toward the glass. Myka had dabbled in multiple languages, having access to all manner of books throughout her childhood, although sign language was among those she had considered most practical and meaningful to her. She had never been a socially-driven child, always choosing to spend her recesses in the school library, and it was there that she met and befriended another bookworm. A girl from the grade above her, Erin, fled into fantasy books as well, though for the purpose of filling her silent world. Myka learned to bridge the gap between their worlds.

She raised a hand slowly, recalling the words she needed. Twenty years ago, her hands would have flown in a flurry of response. It was always easier to understand than to convey.

_M-Y-K-A. Are you P-E-T-E?_

The chimp on the other side of the glass nodded vigorously. He then asked,

_What are you doing?_

Myka paused, unclear of what words she should respond with, which were of course dependent upon his current level of understanding - whether she should say "sitting," "working," or "talking to you," whether he just wanted to learn the words for the actions themselves, or carry on a simple, chimp-level conversation.

He answered her internal questions with another tap on the glass, pointing toward the desk, upon which was her book. She glanced back at him with apparent surprise, to which he repeated the question, and pointed again. This word, she could never forget.

_Reading._

The chimp repeated the word back at her a few times, hands unfamiliar with its pronunciation, and she signed it again as he watched. He then added another word,

_How?_

Myka raised her hands, but lowered them again without speaking, suddenly at a loss for how to explain something so basic, and so essential to her existence. She glanced toward the tv monitors, eyes vacantly scanning the footage. No one seemed to be out of place - the other eight chimps had returned to their rooms, and were all curled up in their separate sleeping places, stuffed toys in arms. The tv set with "Lucy" scrawled on its blue tape label showed a room absent blankets, towels, toys, and chimp.

Myka's hands did not move.


	18. Turnabout Warehouse

Arthur's office was perhaps the most normal-looking location in the entire complex, as far as Claudia had gathered. Although, the measuring stick with which she made this assessment was somewhat broken. The room was a mess to begin with, with stacks of papers strewn about, heavy cabinets lining the walls, and half the floor space taken up by cardboard boxes. It was in every appearance a typical, neglected office space, which she found oddly comforting after her exposure to the anthropology exhibit itself. One box closest to the door that happened to have fallen open was filled with a curious assortment of old light bulbs, silver wristwatches, and Mardi Gras beads. Arthur kicked at a stray bead that lined a path through the boxes, side-stepping between these obstacles until he came to the area where his desk stood amidst the rubble with bulky laptop atop it. He shot a quick glance toward a corner of the room, where another desk and computer workstation had been set up, behind which was a dark-haired woman.

"I didn't see you come in," Arthur addressed the woman at the computer, before turning his attention to the papers upon his desk. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't spy on me through the cameras."

The woman rose from her chair. Her hair fell past her shoulders, framing a narrow face with high cheekbones, and eyes of equal shade. She addressed Arthur with a small smirk, and a South London accent.

"_Hello_ Professor Wells, how are you today?" the woman mocked, her voice lyrical. "Well I'm fine, thank you, Arthur. _And how are you_?"

"How did you get in before me?" Arthur cut in, ignoring her derision. The woman stepped out from behind her desk to busy herself with the contents of a nearby drawer, her back to him. She replied nonchalantly,

"East entrance. I took the lift."

Arthur's gaze flitted up from his desk to fixate on her, brows heavy with confusion. "You said it was broken."

She glanced back over her shoulder, with an expression of feigned innocence. "It was. And I repaired it. Though, I thought to withhold this information, but only because I care so deeply about you, Arthur."

"With whatever deities as my witnesses, I _will_ fire you, Helena," Arthur grumbled.

"As you've said nearly every day since hiring me," she replied. Claudia had shrank back against the wall, or rather, against a stack of boxes, and was waiting in perplexed silence. She was unsure of when she might have an opening to introduce herself, if Arthur would do so, or if he had suddenly forgotten she was there. It was quite possible, seeing as he continued to sift through the papers on his desk, then addressed the woman again with forced civility.

"How's your wife?"

"Not working here, no matter how many times you inquire," she replied with a small smile. "She is doing well, as am I."

"I still can't fathom how she would prefer to sit around in a room full of monkeys instead of putting her historical knowledge to use," the grumbling tone had returned to Arthur's voice.

"Apes, not monkeys. And she's not in the room with them, for your information, she has her own room. She wanted a peaceful job, during which she can read and pass the time without disturbance. I can't blame her, as I'm inclined to feel the same."

Claudia spoke before Arthur could snap back, not so much out of a need to contribute to the conversation, but to reassure herself that she was indeed still visible to the naked eye. "I heard that a guy who worked there got his hand bitten off, some people in my dorm were talking about it," she asserted.

The professor seemed to notice Claudia for the first time, and she cocked her head ever so slightly, contemplating this girl in the corner of the room. When no explanation or intervention was offered by Arthur, who had again resolved to ignore the professor's jabs, she replied matter-of-factly, "Not his hand, just a finger, which has been reattached. Unfortunately, the chimp who removed it will have to be put down."

Claudia frowned. "I'm sorry."

The professor examined the girl a moment longer, her eyes flicked back toward Arthur, and then she abruptly closed the drawer she had been working out of. She crossed the room and gave a warm smile toward the girl who seemed bewilderingly out of place.

"I don't believe we've met. Are you a new intern?"

"Oh, no. I'm Claudia Donovan, I think I was in your class spring quarter last year, '19th Century English Literature,'" she extended a hand, "I'm sort of touring."

"_Oh_," the professor glanced mischievously in Arthur's direction, though he had absorbed himself in further agitating the mess of papers upon his desk, "I didn't know you gave sort-of-tours, Arthur, you need to inform me of your revolutionary new plans for the warehouse."

Claudia's stomach did a small turn, though she focused all her mental willpower on remaining stoical.

"_Exhibit_," Arthur grumbled, "We're not a storage facility."

"If that helps you sleep at night," the professor said, and she took Claudia's hand, "Helena Wells. I couldn't put your name to a face, but I remember reading your final essay, it was one of the few I received. It was excellent. I'm still not quite accustomed to teaching in such an experimental institution, though it certainly frees me from reading subpar material. The students who go beyond the bare minimum are those who understand the value of knowledge."

"And they get nothing to show for it," Arthur added, "No grades, no notion of having done anything correctly. It's illogical, and it's why I don't teach anymore."

"Arthur, half the faculty knows why you stopped teaching, and that's not why," Wells said.

He did not deign to respond, as he had done before, although this particular silence that followed seemed to weigh upon the atmosphere of the room. Helena pursed her lips, as if she regretted that the words had slipped through them, and the shuffling sounds of Arthur's paper-sorting had ceased.

Claudia struggled to find words, some vapid statement that she might inject here to bring the conversation to some other subject, even to its prior level of strained civility. There had been a kind of rapport despite their apparent abrasion, a naturally strained employee-employer relationship which wasn't altogether strange or discomforting. Now, a scab had been picked, and Claudia stood in the middle of two adults who at that moment could no longer maintain eye contact. She fondly recalled that bygone minute when she'd been one with the decor.

"Can we go downstairs to see the exhibit?" she offered. Helena's eyes were still lowered, though Arthur slowly met Claudia's gaze with a strange expression. "I'd like to see some of the artifacts up close."

"Why are you really here?"

Her stomach plunged. Arthur's voice was flat, with neither warmth nor irritation. He removed his glasses and placed them upon the desk, as Helena stepped toward him with a hand raised placatingly.

"Arthur, I apologize, though I think you should continue the tour."

"She is neither seeking an internship with me, nor is she interested in the tour itself, if her attitude regarding absurdity is any indication," Arthur said quickly. Helena looked back at Claudia in bewilderment, as the latter felt a frantic pounding in her chest. _This is not how it's supposed to go._ Arthur addressed Claudia again.

"You've shown a remarkable capacity for acceptance with regard every notion I've proposed, lacking the mind or the compulsion to question how tactile contact with an object can cause bodily harm. You either have no genuine grasp of scientific inquiry itself, or you already understand what transpires here, in which case, you don't need a tour. You need something."

Claudia protested, "You invited people for an internship. I- I hadn't decided if I wanted it, I thought I should see your work first."

"I am required to offer internships and tours to maintain my tenure, _offer_ being the key word, yet no student has been dumb enough to actually bring themself here despite my warnings," he replied.

"Arthur, stop," Helena snapped.

"No, see, they'll scramble over each other for even a whiff of units, credits, CV material, and so for an internship lacking all of those qualities, no right-minded person would show their face. _Why her_? I haven't given a tour in seven years, I don't advertise tours, I explicitly discourage tours, and here you are."

"You didn't stop me from coming in here," Claudia insisted, the blood draining from her face, "You agreed to let me in."

"I agreed because I have to agree," Arthur replied, suspicion fully apparent in his features, "Now, why are you really here? _Which of my artifacts are you looking for?_"

Claudia felt her eyes begin to water in frustration, and despite her resolution to see this through, to follow the clues, to shed light on that bizarre occurrence that upset her world the preceding night, she felt a weight descending upon her whole body. There was, she realized, very little evidence she could present to justify her being there, none of which sounded reasonable or rational. She was wasting this man's time, and her own time. She tilted her head back and looked up at hanging the office lights, to keep the water from spilling out beyond her eyes, as a growing resignation seeped away what little energy she had left. Arthur continued to stare fixedly at her, ignoring her apparent vulnerability, as Helena glared daggers at him in turn. Claudia stepped back from the other two, and made motions as if to leave.

"I don't need anything. I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time," she said, lips curling inward and eyebrows stitched in pain. "I should probably get back to my dorm, I have some reading to do." She turned the doorknob.

"I'd be more than happy to give you a tour myself," Helena insisted.

Claudia shook her head. "No, it's fine. He's right."

The professor's lips parted to reply, though she stopped short and her mouth hung open.

"I came here because I'm stupid," Claudia said, now standing in the open doorway. She exhaled sharply, with a kind of self-derisive amusement, and dabbed a fingertip at the corner of an eye. She examined the water drop with misplaced concentration, avoiding the confusion of the other two in the room. "I came here because I thought you were someone I met before, but it seems unlikely now." Claudia raised her eyes to find Helena and Arthur staring at her in transfixed silence.

"It was nice speaking with you, Professor. See you around."

She left before either could reply.


	19. String Theory

A mobile phone buzzed on Helena's desk. The professor's arms were folded across her chest, with her feet anchored to the same spot on the floor, between Arthur's desk and where Claudia had been moments prior.

"A _student_," Helena said incredulously, now turning upon Arthur, "Do you honestly believe a student would try to steal from the exhibit? As if, they're all sitting around a table in the dining commons, plotting elaborate heists to make Arthur Neilsen's day more complicated?"

"I've worked here long enough to know that there can be no exceptions," Arthur replied, now replacing his glasses on his face, "Students, staff, and co-workers. You'll know once you've spent the better half of your life here."

Helena scoffed. "As if seven years hasn't been enough time for me. Please do fire me if it ever comes to that."

The phone had spun upon its axis in its frantic buzzing, and soon it encountered the base of the lamp upon her desk. It rattled insistently against the metal, though Helena continued to pry at Arthur with an inquiring gaze. His brows twitched in irritation, until finally he swept his arm up, gesticulating toward the offending noise.

"_Could you please_?"

Helena contemplated the phone on the desk, finding herself inclined to let it ring in order to prolong his frustration, considering his brash attitude toward her student. Though, something dawned upon her. She tapped her fingers against her arm.

"Why give me her real name?"

Claudia strode out the office, a fierce resignation giving strength to her steps. She hadn't been that invigorated by a defeat in quite a while. She could, she thought, return to a quiet life back in her dorm. No more mysteries. Eating crackers alone in her room on a Friday night, while filling her head with some obscure encyclopedic knowledge that might never prove useful to her in the future. Theoretical use, perhaps. Indeed, she imagined herself in numerous scenarios, most frequently stranded on an island, where she was significantly better equipped for survival because of some tidbit of knowledge that she had acquired in her college days. _I know how to pluck a seagull_, she thought. _I know which coconuts are best to eat._

She walked along the edge of the railing, away from the staircase from which she descended, recalling the struggle there and the still lingering soreness in her thighs. She remembered mention of a repaired elevator, and made a beeline for the stairs that led toward the warehouse floor.

"The home stretch," she muttered, and drew in a deep breath to patter quickly down the stairs, landing abruptly on the ground floor. Despite his abrasiveness, Arthur did manage to supply his non-existent guests with helpful signs, like a friendly warning of chemical alteration, or in this case, a sign pointing in the direction of Claudia's ascent from madness. She followed.

Her eyes wandered down the aisles between the shelves as she passed them, flicking around from object to object. She caught glimpses of the items contained within, seemingly mundane things that might as well be in any household. An armchair, a pen, a metronome. Unexciting.

Soon, she came upon a wall of the exhibit, embedded in which were the buttons for calling an elevator, though she could scarcely make out the outline of the doors themselves. She lifted a finger, approached the keypad, when suddenly the wall opened.

"Mmm-!" Claudia stumbled back from the door of the lift. Her lips were pressed shut in a suppressed cry, as she backpedaled until her back met a shelf full of artifacts. She heard a clinking from above her as the shelf swayed, though her gaze was fixed firmly on a figure behind the parting elevator doors.

A curly-haired woman had been pacing across the length of the lift. At Claudia's noise, she stopped and raised her eyes from where they'd been tracing the patterns on the floor. A hand was pressed to one ear, holding a phone, though she didn't appear to be speaking into it. She lowered it and examined the bewildered girl.

"Are you an intern?" she asked. Claudia's mouth opened, though no sound was produced. The woman's lips twinged with discomfort, and she stepped slowly out of the elevator toward the frozen girl.

"I'm looking for Helena," she began, "I didn't tell her I'd be coming, but I was hoping to see her before I left campus."

"You're Myka," Claudia said, voice hoarse. The woman was taken aback.

"She talks about me?" she asked, with slight reproach. Her face suddenly twisted into disbelief, as she considered Claudia's reaction, paired with her name. "Hold on, what has she said about me?"

"Myka?" a crackling voice came through the cell phone, and the woman hurriedly brought it back up to her ear.

"Helena? Yeah, one of your interns here is staring at me in holy terror, do you tell them stories about me?"

Muffled confusion on the other end. She winced and turned away from Claudia.

"I'm here, at the exhibit - who? ...You don't?"

Quick chatter from the other end of the line, and a brief pause. The woman locked eyes with Claudia, and spoke into the phone slowly. "Then how does she know my name?"

A loud bang sounded from somewhere in the exhibit, reverberating through the air and sending Claudia springing away from the shelf. The hanging lights swayed above, and both her and the woman gazed upward, as the several of the bulbs began to flicker out. The two exchanged bewildered glances, and craned their necks around the shelves with curiosity. A crackling noise came over a PA system, and Arthur's voice boomed out over the warehouse with an intensity that sent hands flying up to ears.

"_So help me Claudia_," the voice roared, "I will have you arrested, or at the very least dismissed from the university for disturbing my exhibit. Leave anything you've taken _right now _and when I send the police after you, I will make sure-"

His voice was cut off as fumbling came over the speakers, and the microphone knocked against something. Helena's voice pierced through the indistinct noise, increasing with volume as some scuffle took place for the possession of the microphone. Finally, the clamor stopped, and Arthur's voice was heard with muffled protestation in the background.

Helena spoke clearly and sternly through the speakers.

"Hello, Myka and Claudia. I'll need the two of you to stay right where you are. We appear to have a foreign body in the facility, and I'll be down in just a moment to deal with it. And, for the record, I do not tell my co-workers stories about you, Myka, and I apologize for causing you any worry. I hope your first day of work went well."

Myka lips drew up in a small smile, and her face reddened slightly. Shuffling sounds came over the PA as if to end the transmission, though Helena suddenly returned to the microphone.

"Oh, and Claudia," her voice continued, "I believe you."

Claudia's heart leapt into her throat.

"And I think you have something more to tell us."

The sound of footsteps nearby broke through Claudia's brief moment of relief. She shot Myka a perplexed glance, though the latter seemed unperturbed. It couldn't be possible that Helena had made her way from the office to the floor instantaneously, nor could Arthur. And no one else worked there.

Myka was the first to move. She walked off in apparent disregard, following the increasingly close footsteps and though Claudia did not want to go, and she wished to stay in that spot where Helena could find her and affirm the strange events that took place, her feet moved to follow. The two of them walked along the shelves, scanning down the rows, until Myka came to a halt. Claudia crept up beside her and stared at the figure before them.

A man loomed between the two shelves, just thirty feet away - aged, yet not old, with grey-streaked black hair atop a thin face. He wore a well-fitting dark grey suit, and he faced them, motionlessly, though a small curve appeared at the edge of his mouth showing something akin to amusement. Claudia took a step behind the taller woman who had rooted her feet to the floor in a defensive stance.

"_Foreign body_ is a funny way of putting it," the man called out, in an accent not unlike Helena's. There was no reply from the PA.

"Do you have permission to be here?" Myka called back. Claudia hadn't the voice to speak. Something tingled at the back of her head, a nagging and instinctual fear, and she sensed that something was very off about this person.

The man feigned consideration of this question, then put on an expression of mock surprise. "You know, I don't, actually," he said, eyes twinkling. Myka's lips pressed together in a scowl.

He cocked his head to the side, peering past Myka to examine the hiding girl. "_Ah_. You're the one Steve found," the man said, "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. From what I've heard about you, you have everything very well figured out."

Claudia nearly jumped out from behind Myka, seized by a sudden panic. She called out to the figure, fear rattling her voice, "_How _do you know me?"

"And isn't that the same question everyone's been asking you," the man said, with a hint of delight, "For someone trying so hard to deter the interest of a crowd, feigning madness is both a brilliant and idiotic way to go about it. You deter the idiots, and yet the brilliant ones will find you all the more interesting." He slipped his hand into a pocket and slowly drew out a thin string, yarn-like, roughly a foot in length. It dangled in the air, and carefully, he turned it horizontally with forefingers and thumbs pinched at either end, his eyes scanning along its edge. His eyes flicked up toward Claudia, and lifted the string up to the level of his nose.

"I was told that you enjoyed strings. Would you like to tell us what you found, with that map on your wall, and the little bits of yarn?"

"Map-?" Claudia said, voice cracking.

"Yes, the funny map that Steve said you had, it was so intriguing that I had to see it for myself."

The color drained from Claudia's face. "When the hell did you see it?" Claudia wheezed, "Were you- no, I took it down!"

The man rolled his head around, cracking his neck. "Not an issue. For the uninformed of us here today," he raised his voice, "Your map perfectly corresponds to the locations of every incident associated with one artifact of interest."

"I'm not looking for anything," Claudia said, mouth dry, "Neither of us has any business with artifacts. We're not interested."

"Well," the man raised an eyebrow, "_I am_."

A high-pitched whine came over the PA system, and though the others' hands flew up to cover their ears, the man seemed particularly careful not to recoil. The string remained as it was. The lights of the exhibit turned a hellish red, and clanging sounds echoed from the walls. The whirring sounds in the background, of underground ventilation and the whiffs of an outside breeze screamed to a halt, leaving the air stagnant. As soon as the feedback ended, Arthur's voice blared out over the exhibit, with an uncharacteristically intense fury in his tone.

"_Myka and Claudia. Do not move._"

A familiar buzz came from somewhere along the shelves, as Claudia recognized a small security camera mounted up above. It had turned, and was now intently focused upon the man they faced.

"_Do not speak to this man_," Arthur boomed, "_Do not entertain him. _ _James, you will not leave here alive."_

The man let out a slow laugh, beginning from the depths of his belly, and rising to shake his whole body. It seemed to take all of his self-restraint not to double over in mirth, as Arthur's heavy breathing rasped through the speakers, and the camera buzzed again, lens zooming in on the man.

"Oh, Arthur. Another time." He looked back at Claudia with a renewed excitement. "Let's take another look in our sister universe, shall we? Since I didn't get the chance to locate you last time, I was hoping you'd stay around longer to help me find what I need."

Claudia felt her face turn cold.

"Love, you're in the way," he sing-songed to Myka. The woman did not budge.

Rapid footfalls, then the sound of soles sliding across concrete, as Helena careened into view two shelf-lengths behind the man. She skidded to a halt, wheeling herself around to stand with feet planted firmly apart, facing the scene down the aisle. Myka's gaze met hers, sending blaring signals toward Helena in a visual panic, as the man craned his neck back to catch this new figure out of the corner of his eye.

Helena braced herself, legs bent to launch herself down the aisle in a sprint, though the man whipped his head front to face Myka and Claudia.

"Well, no matter. Time to go!"

In one rapid movement, he brought the edges of the string together, pinched with a hanging loop below them, then whipped them back apart.

The string drew taut, and the force with which it straightened caused it to resonate, vibrating rapidly up and down between his fingers in a blur. The air around the string began to change, and Helena's awe-stricken face disappeared from view.

Something like waves emanated outward, though they were invisible in themselves, they expanded and contracted to manipulate the visual field between the string and the women poised further down the aisle. The two could not move. The world in front of them became a torrent of visual stimuli, as any reference point for their own position in space was turned about, and they swayed with sudden nausea. Claudia stumbled in some direction, and her elbow met the hard metal of a shelf, and in recoiling in another direction her hip made contact with the floor.

The man's face stretched around them, horrific and comical, and through it all they saw his teeth appear alternatively tiny and gigantic, in a wide grin.

The waves soon enveloped Claudia and Myka, as Claudia's lips drew back and she formed the words she knew, the patterns in the air falling into recognition.  
_Bed bubble._

The waves synchronized themselves, and as they did their amplitudes were magnified, the expansions multiplied ad infinitum, and the space on one side of them contracted to a point as that behind them became stretched. An atom pulled like taffy to the size of a shelf behind them, and a space the length of galaxies compressed to the size of a molecule before them.

Claudia blinked.

And the warehouse was gone.


	20. Welcome Back

The door to Artie's office swung open.

Myka and Pete strode in, concern across their features as they beelined for the armchair that had been moved into the center of the room. Steve was kneeling at its side with a damp washcloth in hand, dabbing it on the forehead of an unconscious form.

Leena sat at Artie's desk, a few feet away in the cramped space, fingers plinking across the computer keys at an almost leisurely pace. She glanced up at the new arrivals.

"Did you do it?" She asked.

"Yes, the artifact is snagged, bagged, and tagged, so would you mind giving us the details of what happened here?" Myka said, kneeling alongside Steve.

"The artifact tracker clonked Claudia in the head out in that field by the plane," Steve said, face grim. He dropped the cloth in the bowl of water and sat back on his heels. Claudia had been propped upright, a bandage wrapped around the back of her head and her arms hanging limp over the sides of the chair. Her face was still absent color.

"Yeah - we saw that thing on the way back, is that all part of..._this_?" Pete waved his hand, gesturing at Claudia and her surrounding space.

"Artie had me check for artifacts missing from our collection, and I only found one that might be involved," Leena chimed in, "Though it doesn't tell us much."

The three agents gathered behind Leena as she pulled up several windows on the computer screen. She clicked through them until finding a Warehouse data entry page, with a small, curious image. Pete's eyebrows shot up, and Steve folded his arms in discomfort.

_"Lous-Andreas Salomé's whip,_" Leena read, "_Augments the effects of other philosophically based artifacts_."

The image showed a woman kneeling in a cart drawn not by horses, but by two men. A rope had been tied around the crook of an arm on each man, and its other end hung in a loose loop in the cradle of the woman's hand. She was leaning forward, one hand on the rope, and in the other she held a small whip with her wrist bent as if to flick its end against the rears of the gentlemen. Myka brought a hand up to her mouth to veil an amused smile. Time had obscured the clarity of the photograph, the faces becoming washed out, yet it almost seemed as though the woman was grinning too.

"Looks like a hell of a party." Pete said.

Myka let out a snort of laughter, before quickly clearing her throat. She began with renewed composure, "Salomé was the driving force behind a great number of psychologists, philosophers, and poets...some argue that had they never associated with her, they wouldn't be half the men that history remembers them as."

"Can I take a wild guess as to what 'associated' means here?" Pete asked.

"Intellectual discussion, though yes, some of the relationships were romantic. Though you can't argue with her methods if that was the only way a woman could be heard by important men in that time. I mean, you have to hand it to someone who can woo a sexually disinterested philosopher in order to speak through him," Myka gestured at the moustached man drawing the cart.

Toward the office windows that faced out over the Warehouse, a figure raced through the air with decelerating speed until landing squarely on the balcony outside, nose just inches from the glass. The heavy figure swayed, unclipping a harness from around its body and detaching from the zipline that stretched along the length of the ceiling to the balcony. Artie stumbled through the open door, leaning an arm against a cabinet to steady himself as he surveyed the agents in the room.

"The whip is gone, it may have been taken days ago, there were no signs of forced entry into the building," he panted, "Is Claudia awake yet?"

"Still out cold," Steve said.

Beginning where the man plucked the string and she blinked away the world, and ending someplace far away, Claudia's mind began a frame-by-frame journey to piece together the space in between. It was like watching the passing of a train, following the pieces, eyes jumping from car to car and glancing over the empty air in between. She felt as if her nose were pressed up against it all, the images before her consuming the entirety her vision, and she realized they were fragments - no, entire existences of herself in unfamiliar places, all whirring past her. Her stomach churned.

_What are these?_

Her head began pounding, bombarded and overwhelmed by the images in a manner that seemed to echo the waves that had filled the space around the string. The fluctuations became more pronounced, and as they did her mind slipped in and out of the images going by, as if she too had been plucked and was resonating with it all. Her mind raced over the images, wobbling up and down to skim their surfaces, yet each time she dipped deeper and felt herself slowing against the resulting friction, compounding the difficulty of extricating herself again. The difficulty grew, until she finally ceased fluctuating, and plunged down into one particular universe.

She found herself in an armchair in the office of the curious man with the bristly goatee.

For a fraction of a second, Artie's office was horrifically warped, and the agents within it would never be able to describe precisely what they saw. The event was so brief that it might've been attributed to a mishap within the brain, a misfiring of neurons that incapacitated the senses, and when experienced in full it had the effect of rendering all present people momentarily paralyzed. The prior incidence as recorded by the durational spectrometer was manageable by being carefully controlled and examined, but when the entirety of one's surrounding space was twisted, it was utterly bewildering.

This occurred at the precise time that Claudia sat up in the armchair with a yelp, and Myka collapsed against Artie's desk.

Voices rang out for both parties as Pete grabbed hold of the faltering Myka by an arm and Steve rushed to Claudia, knocking over the cloth and water bowl in the process.

"Holy wow," Claudia wheezed, "Wish I could've been asleep for that."

She struggled to stand as Myka did the same, the latter extricating herself from Pete's support.

"Hey, take it easy Myka," Pete urged, but Myka stumbled away from him, confusion etched across her face.

Steve attempted to nudge Claudia back in the chair, but she pushed his hands away. She stumbled to her feet, glancing wildly about the room. Her head pounded with the sudden movement, and she felt along her hair to the bandage.

"Is Myka here?" she asked, careening around. Myka had backed up against a shelf away as far away as possible from Pete, her eyes scanning the office in apparent shock. Claudia stepped toward her, and recognition flashed across Myka's face.

"Did you see the other places-?" Claudia began. The woman nodded vigorously, and Claudia breathed a sigh of relief. The remaining agents in the room regarded the two with increasing skepticism, Leena most of all, who was eyeing them both with an intensely piercing gaze.

"Wait, was I the only one who saw everything turn to funhouse mirrors?" Pete asked. "Myka, what did you see?" He made a movement as if to approach her, yet she sidestepped to Claudia's side.

"Claudia?" she asked in a hushed tone, "If what the man said is true, if we are actually, truly in a sister universe...please don't tell me that I'm married to that man." Myka whispered, "This would be the worst of all possible worlds."

"That's not our Myka," Leena said. "It's happened to her too. She's been switched."

Artie, who had until this point remained fixed to one space in the ground, rushed forward to stand squarely in front of the two women with his brows quivering in fury.  
"_Who are you people, and where are you coming from?_" he hissed.

The room fell silent. Pete's mouth hung open, a slow fear building behind his eyes, until it melted away into a profound expression of loss. It was the same gaze that Steve had given Claudia, and that he still continued to regard her with, and Myka's defiance seemed to vanish at this realization that she was, in every sense, now inhabiting a body of an unknown self. This life, for all she knew, could involve any number of unfortunate possibilities.

Claudia's voice caught in her throat, yet again confronted by an angry Arthur, who regardless of incarnation seemed to always wield the power of making her regret her own presence. Myka placed a hand on her shoulder, as less of a gesture of reassurance and more to steady herself in the dizzying circumstances. Though, this time Claudia did not balk.

"This isn't your Myka," she said, "And I'm still not your Claudia." She glanced at Steve, whose expression remained unchanged.

"We came here from the same universe, and we didn't come alone."


	21. Intro to the Multiverse

"Okay, so some guy plucks a piece of yarn and that brings them here from another _universe_?"

Pete paced the length of the office, rubbing his face in agitation. Claudia and Myka had perched themselves on either arm of the armchair, watching their account of the prior events sink into the rest of the group. Leena had resumed her place at the desk, diving into the research database once again, as Artie leaned over her shoulder, eyes unreadable beneath the screen's reflection on his glasses. Steve had found solace at the fringe of the group beside the electrical box on the wall, closing his eyes and allowing the humming of the wires to quell frantic thoughts.

Pete had devolved into a state of existential confusion.

"I mean, sure we've hopped into mirrors and books before, but you're talking about some place that's on the other end of...not space," he said incredulously, "Like, flying out of this universe to land in another."

"Bubbles in a bathtub," Leena said, fingers flying on the computer keyboard, "All expanding into something in between them, you cross a gap in between, and pay a visit to your next-door-bubble."

Pete stopped pacing and stared wide-eyed at the two figures on the armchair. "Wouldn't that make their skin rip from their bodies, or their brains melt into a soup? How fast would they have to be going?"

Artie removed his glasses and wiped them on a shirt sleeve. "The funny thing about bending the fabric of space is that _you_ don't have to move anywhere," he said, "Laws of physics state that we cannot move faster than light, therefore, you stay where you are and bring the things you want toward you."

"You're saying that this string manipulates the universe," Myka said, raising her brows.

"Hold on," Claudia piped up, "If that's the case, it would explain the stretching and compressing around the bed the first time I got here, and all the funhouse theatrics the second."

"You dared to disturb the universe," Artie said, "In a manner of speaking. Think of it as, you're sitting down for breakfast, and you want to get a plate of cookies that's far away on the other side, out of your reach," Artie swept his arm across his desk, sending papers onto the floor.

"Cookies for breakfast?" Leena smirked.

Artie shot her a glare as he unwound the scarf from around his neck and smoothed it out across his desk, one end hanging off the edge toward Pete, the other by him. Upon his end of the scarf, he placed a small paperweight.

"How do you get this plate over here?"

"You grab it," Pete said, leaning across the desk with hand outstretched, yet Artie batted it away.

"No!" Artie peered over his glasses, a finger hanging in the air. "The rule is that you can't get out of your seat. You may not lean across the table, so what do you do?"

Realization dawned across Myka's features, and without warning she sprang up from the chair and strode over to Pete's end of the scarf. Pete backed up out of her way as she reached below the edge of the desk to clutch the hanging end of the scarf, and she began pulling it toward her. She gathered the cloth in a bunch as the paperweight on the other end slid toward her across the desk, dragged along on the other end of the scarf. She held out her other hand beneath the desk edge, and as the paperweight slid all the way to the end, she caught it as it toppled over the edge.

"You pull the tablecloth," she said. She raised her gaze to Artie's, inquiring, and held out the paperweight for him. For a few seconds he stared back, eyes seeming to dig beneath her features with a question, fascination mingled with skepticism and she returned the gaze. Abruptly, he retrieved the object from her hands and plopped it back the desk.

"Precisely. Though, it seems to be much more of a spiritual hop-over so to speak, seeing as their consciousnesses are the only thing that switched, leave their bodies intact."

"Well, this Myka's got a good noodle too," Pete said. She turned to him, and he gave her a small smile. "Sharp as a tack."

"Which brings us to the issue of the man who brought the two of them here," Artie cut in, voice heavy. Claudia looked up from where she was picking black polish off her nails, and Steve seemed to awaken from his state as a wall fixture. "If we inhabit two universes that are bound by similarities, analogous people and circumstances with minor alterations here and there, then he must also exist in this universe in order to travel between the two and they must be reasonably alike."

"He had something to do with Steve's cult, "Claudia began, and all heads turned to examine Steve with amusement. Steve folded his arms and wrinkled his nose in disdain.

"You drinking the kool-aid, Steve?" Pete asked.

"We're nothing alike," Steve muttered.

"He was interested in this map I had on my wall," Claudia continued, "Steve saw it when I first met him, then he went back to the group and told them about me, and then creepy British guy somehow got into my room when I was asleep. That was the night I got transported over here, but something must've gone wrong and I got sent back, so he cornered me and brought me here again. He wants me to help him find something."

"And what was the significance of the locations on the map?" Artie asked, now seated next to Leena. He had his elbows up on the desk, hands folded under his nose, peering at Claudia over knobby knuckles.

Claudia bristled, unprepared for this question. She shrugged a little too earnestly, averting her gaze from the others as the conviction in her voice dwindled.

"I...want to travel, I put pins in places I want to go after I graduate," she cleared her throat and scratched distractedly at her neck. "It doesn't mean anything to anyone, but he said they were all places that were connected with an artifact in this world."

"Then we'll start looking," Artie said, rising from his chair. He retrieved his black bag from the floor and bustled in between various drawers and cabinets, exchanging the items inside the bag for others he deemed more appropriate. "Make a list of the locations and we'll send out teams of to investigate each. I'll be going alone, Myka will go with Pete, and Claudia will go with Steve - no arguing, no complaints," he added at Myka's scowl. "We're walking on very thin ice, and your body switching seems to be entirely beyond your control. If both of you are swapped in the middle of this, you need someone grounded here to keep you - or rather, our Claudia and Myka - informed so the investigation can proceed accordingly."

"And what happens if the two of us switch too?" Steve asked. Pete's eyes widened and he looked frantically from Steve to Artie, and shook his head vigorously.

"No no no, I don't want to know what some doppelganger would do in my shoes," he said, "You don't know how hard I work for this. The dude might start stuffing his face with chips and ruin my bod."

"Charming," Leena said, "But the artifact seems to work with only one set of people at one time. Whoever has the string controls who is switched over here, and when it's used again, or time runs out, they're reset back. Myka and Claudia will switch back before anyone else does. Artie's method is sound, as long as our respective twins aren't all cornered in the same place and forced to transfer."

"And what if that happens?" Pete asked.

"The man wants Claudia's information. I doubt that you're all that important on the other side," Leena said impassively, though her eyes twinkled in amusement. Pete blew air out of his mouth and held up his hands in protestation.

"Whoa, okay, go ahead and insult a guy who isn't even here. I bet he's important, I bet I'm really awesome over there. Myka, you know any Pete's on your side?"

"I take care of a chimp named Pete," she said plainly. Leena let out a snort.

Artie let his black bag fall onto the desk with a clunk, the top open and brimming with odd objects, and interrupting Pete's moment for sadness. He spoke in a low tone, and all agents leaned in to catch his words. Claudia's nails were at her teeth, and she scraped against them distantly.

"Whoever this man is, he has managed to incorporate his doppelganger into his plan, and they are working in conjunction on both sides of the coin," Artie said, "I don't think it was a coincidence that an artifact of augmentation was stolen in the midst of all this - useless on its own but powerful in coordination - but because your minds are the only thing that have transferred, we must assume that no physical matter can move in between worlds. His twin is happy to sit on stolen goods here while he works in your world, accumulating whatever resources he needs on both sides for some purpose greater than just a single world. And right now, he has entrusted his twin with the trigger to send you two back at any given time." Artie snapped his bag shut. His eyes flicked between each of the agents' anxious expressions, with no consoling one of his own to return, until they finally rested on Claudia's paling face. He let out a small sigh, and muttered as he turned toward the door. "They have never met, and yet they're working in perfect unison. And we're expected to do the same."


End file.
